The report analysing the causes that led to the third consecutive Labour defeat says nothing new: it is the certificate of what people like yours truly have been saying all along.
It is a confirmation of what many have been saying for many years: that Sant was not managing the party properly and that with Sant’s management, Labour could not win.
The report tends to diffuse the fact that the major responsibility for any defeat lies with the leader and it tends to imply that if Sant has stepped down, the gang of five must step down as well. Sant never sinks alone: in 1998 when the odds were that the tables would turn, Sant went for general elections although everyone knew that the polls were not in his favour.
In 2008 Sant must be thanking his lucky stars that the report treated him with kid gloves and concluded that the responsibility lies with all five. Oddly enough, this time the only gentleman of the lot ha turned out to be Sant himself: in that the perception is that he is the only one who was brave enough to “resign”.
But this resignation is so far only cosmetic in that he is still leader of the Opposition and he is representing the party in Parliament and speaking as if he were in control and with the blessing of the party and the party supporters.
Strange but true, the report sought to seek revenge on Michael Falzon who was most of the time at loggerheads with Sant. Whether this was a pure coincidence or intentional, I cannot say; but what I can say is that I do not agree with Falzon when he says that his responsibility stops once he has highlighted the problems facing the party to the leadership. Although I agree with him that he must not take all the blame.
Falzon makes a very interesting case study to students studying political science and public policy: where does loyalty to the party starts and where does it end and first of all, what is the meaning of loyalty to the party? Falzon defines loyalty to the party as remaining silent on the party’s collapse. I beg to differ: if my son had a mental problem, I would not hide my son in the attic as our forefathers used to do, but I would address his problem and would not be ashamed to send him to a mental institution if that is the best cure for him.
The gang of five knew that the party was sick and that it was getting weaker and weaker, but they decided that for their own safety it was better not to address this sickness. In the circumstances, I wonder what came first: loyalty to the party or loyalty to their seat within the party.
But if the gang of five is guilty of the fall of the Malta Labour Party, it is still in charge. This is something that no Labour supporter and many of the Labour delegates can understand. The gang is still facing the public as if the Labour defeat is a thing of the past and the flaws are already a thing of the past. How do these people dare face the supporters and the public, when their place, for the time being, should be in hiding?
Neither can I understand how the secretary-general is still controlling the extraordinary general conference on the election of the new leader when he has at point blank stated in public that he does not endorse one of the candidates and both the report and Dr Michael Falzon attribute to him part of the blame for Labour’s defeat.
I read on the local newspaper the advert stating the agenda of the conference and issued by the secretary general. I do not know what the statute says but on this occasion it ought to be the party’s electoral commission to take the responsibility for the organization of this extraordinary general conference.
The highlight is not the report but the coming week, when all the candidates will be strengthening their lobbying with the party delegates and the supervision of the electoral process for fear that there will not be another “Lino Spiteri” eventually reporting what another “Pawlu Muscat” told him.
Nobody needs to tell the delegates what is best for the party because they know that nobody from within can save the Malta Labour Party. These past three months have been good fodder for the Nationalist electoral campaign for the next general elections, and if the leader elected is somebody who in one way or another has had a hand in all this chaos, then I am sure that Labour can brace itself as from now for more years in opposition.
Because let us face it, the report does not seem to assign any responsibility to the parliamentary group except for their poor attendance in the parliamentary group meetings. The report fails to analyse the indifference of the group for such meetings and it also fails to address the responsibility, if any, of Labour MPs in this situation. Once again, is their silence tantamount to loyalty to the party or loyalty to their seat in Parliament? You are intelligent enough to know the answer, and you are intelligent enough to know that whoever broke this silence was either brought to book before the inquisitive board of discipline and vigilance, or had to say goodbye to his political ambitions.
Now we have many of these MPs contesting for leadership and for the posts of deputy leaders. We also have one MEP. They all knew what was going on within the report and they needed no report to tell them so. Now these people are promising us change: how they want to do it now, and not before, I do not know. How they have wasted another five years and almost 20 years in opposition to come up with this promise for change I do not know either.
Even Sant promised a lot of things in 2003 in his electoral manifesto: but once at the helm he forgot all about them. I remember that one of these promises was the publication of an English newspaper. There is no structure within the party to ensure that the electoral manifesto of the person who is elected leader is carried out and it seems that the duty to vote does not bring with it the duty on the leader to abide by what he has promised.
Let us hope that this time the leader chosen will be the one who is best suited to bring Labour back in government. But once again, I am saying nothing new!