The latest events in the Labour Party gave rise to an avalanche of opinions many of which were less than positive. Many were of the opinion that the party needed to change a lot, especially in the administration and not least the post of general secretary. Upon, seeing the outcome of the delegates’ decisions, many were disappointed.
The outcome was in a way very understandable. Indeed, it perfectly mirrors all the wrongs and deficiencies present in the labour party. It is the inevitable result of an outdated organisational structure which is out of touch with today’s reality and perhaps even more worrying out of touch with the Labour voters themselves.
The organisational structure of the party is such that all the top posts of the party are elected by the 900 or so party delegates. These 900 decide for everyone else. They decide for party members and the Labour voter in general. Nothing wrong if representative democracy is quoted. However, such superficial rationales are a long way from explaining how things really work in the party. Indeed, a question that naturally follows is who the party delegates are and who appointed them?
Those who want to continue taking people for a ride may continue with the usual platitudes. We are not interest in that. Having a first-hand experience of the party internal way of doing things we argue that the problem lies in the fact that the party structures are not attractive to a number of very valid persons. Generally speaking, the majority of party delegates are nothing more than persons who frequent the party clubs in their respective locality. This partly explains the bias in the age, gender and level of education of the average delegate. They take a certain pride in knowing that they can decide the fate of the party but without really comprehending the responsibility that this entails.
Viewed from the delegates’ point of view, the decision to trigger as least changes at the top as possible is fully rational. They invest their time and energy in nurturing and forging a personal relationship with the incumbent giving them significant leverage in due time. Taking this perspective, not voting for the incumbent is equivalent to losing their investment. Thus self-preserving is all that matters. The incumbent party officials know this and they learned how to thrive under such circumstances.
If the party wants to be really inclusive and attractive it needs first of all to limit the excessive power of the delegate on top ranks appointments. This can be done by giving the right of voting to party local council representative and party members. A system of weighting votes can be applied where MP’s, local councillors, party members, and delegates are each given one-fourth of the voting weight. This will ensure that all different levels of the labour vote base are represented. It will also make strategic voting for the party top ranks highly improbable.
Before concluding, we have to acknowledge that expressing ourselves in the way we did, we made ourselves vulnerable to accusations of stereotyping the party delegate. We are aware of this, but we still maintain that the picture presented is a valid one.
Way back in 1992, newly elected labour leader Alfred Sant took decisions that resulted in freeing the party from some damaging elements within. Sixteen years later, a new elected party leader is faced with another challenge: this time having to give the party back to its voters.

Mario Borg, Joe Masini
Gozo

(Mario Borg and Joe Masini were MLP assistant district secretary and district election manager from 2004 to 2006 and from 1998 to 2003, respectively)