In the wake of the election for the top posts in the MLP leadership and administrative structures, much has been said about the delegates of the MLP General Conference who had the last say on the chosen candidates.
Some people wondered whether these delegates are a bunch of short-sighted morons who act as robots obeying the instructions of the so-called ‘party machine’. Others hailed them for ‘doing their own thing’ and not succumbing to public and media pressure while others are convinced that the delegates were duped – over and over again - by a reverse psychology game played by the PN media.
Commenting in The Malta Independent on Friday week, Alfred Mifsud showed his disappointment at the way these delegates made their choices. He is practically convinced that Labour delegates, who fall for the same PN trick over and over again, have sown the seeds of another Labour defeat in 2013: “A scenario which would give credence to certain suspicions I harbour that the PN don’t just manage their own party but through reverse psychology also manages Labour’s. A scenario explains why the PN, unlike genuine and hurt Labourites, have good reason to be happy with Labour’s choices as they scored a poker in the four top positions that will lead Labour’s assault on the PN’s apparent unassailability by 2013.”
Things, of course, are not so simple. Writing in MaltaToday in the run-up to the election of the MLP leader (May 18), James Debono analysed the profile of the MLP delegate and found that ‘he is typically male, southern and middle aged.’ Only 28% of the delegates are females and the age distribution explains a lot: 56.2% are over 59 years; 5.8% are over 70; while only 14.7% are under 35 years. No wonder Alex Sceberras Trigona struck a chord and was recalled straight from a bygone era that many delegates nostalgically hark back at!
There is more to it than this. The relevant question that nobody seems to be asking is: how on earth did these people find themselves MLP delegates?
In the MLP set-up, a staggering 590 delegates are elected or nominated from the local sectional committees, with each locality being given a number of delegates in proportion to the paying members of the party living in the locality. Apart from these, there are 78 district representatives (six from each district), 35 from the youth section (Forum Zghazagh Laburisti); 25 each from the other branches: women, veterans and the Brigata!
Anyone who has an inkling of internal ‘politics’ within a party will immediately realise that the central administration has substantial direct influence on the ‘national’ sections that send delegates to the General Conference, even if they are only a ‘ghost’ section with practically no activities such as Labour’s youth section. This, incidentally, is par for the course not only within the MLP but also applies to what happens within the PN machine.
The bulk of the MLP delegates come from the localities. These would be mainly most or all of the members of the locality party committee. In cases where the locality sends more delegates than there are committee members, these are ‘co-opted’ from other interested membership card-holders from the locality.
It is the annual general meeting of the locality section that elects the section committee members and, in theory this is a system that respects democratic principles. In practice, however, things are different. The majority of card-carrying party members hardly bother to go and vote for the sectional committee members. Most people become party members – tesserati – because they are loyal supporters or because they are supporting the party’s cause at a particular point in time. Others just want a membership card to flash it in the appropriate moment. This last type tends to pay party membership dues to both the MLP and the PN.
This is why, more often than not, there are not enough nominations to form a local committee and people are coaxed to take a seat on the committee… The committee, in turn, ‘cajoles’ other membership-card holders to accept to become delegates, if such is the case.
It is obvious that many people are sectional committee members, year in year out for donkey’s years and the delegates hardly reflect the average party voter. It is also obvious that in such circumstances, an alert and efficient central party machine can have undue influence on whoever becomes a sectional committee member and/or a delegate.
In other words, there is a full circle in the system and the pertinent question is: Is it the delegates who elected the party administration or is it the incumbent party administration that ‘elected’ a good chunk of the delegates?
The control of the party administration machine over the delegates is not unlimited, but the big chunk is under their control. During the last five years, Jason Micallef and the rest of the party machine played up to the delegates’ whims, kept them happy by free trips to Brussels and by other methods and the loyalty of so many of them to him was never in any doubt. That is why he was so confident that he will be re-elected and why his tally of votes increased substantially from that garnered on his first being elected five years ago.
At the end of the day, the only way out of this circle – or is it circus – is for all the party members to be given the right to elect the very important posts: something that George Abela proposed for the election of the leader but was turned down by – you guessed it – the delegates themselves.
The situation within the PN is not so much that different as regards the way the PN Councillors (who vote in the General Council) are appointed. In the case of the PN, however, the holders of the administrative posts are elected from within the much smaller executive committee.
It is ironic that at a time when the MLP and the PN have agreed to appoint a Parliamentary committee to study ways of strengthening the country’s democracy, the internal democracy of both parties is in such a shambles.