NEWS | Wednesday, 18 March 2009

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The PN’s MEP campaign sounds like a cacophony in which candidates shoot down government policy at will. Is this rebellion a strategy to ward off a humiliating defeat, JAMES DEBONO asks?

It all started with Edward Demicoli calling for a ban on spring hunting and earning the scorn of the hunting lobby and a rebuke from Nationalist backbencher Philip Borg, who reminded the young upstart that the Nationalist government was still fighting in the European Court to defend its negotiated package.
Then it was the PN’s upper echelons, who invited GRTU director-general Vince Farrugia to stand as a candidate despite his steadfast opposition to the utility tariff regime imposed by Austin Gatt. Farrugia may not need to say much to prove his independence from the party – many PN stalwarts will never forgive him for his part in dethroning Eddie Fenech Adami in 1996, by opposing the introduction of VAT.
Clearly, a reputation for independent-mindedness and outspokenness has lately become an asset, rather than an impediment, for the GonziPN stratagem. The next to be invited to join the line-up was environmentalist Alan Deidun, whose newspaper column documented the government’s dismal green record in the past years.
And what better way for Deidun to prove his independence from the party than to launch his campaign outside Charles Polidano’s Siggiewi quarry, that veritable monument to environmental degradation blessed by MEPA under successive PN administrations?
Deidun has touched a raw nerve inside the PN’s power structure. For in the popular imagination, the construction magnate represents the impunity from the law enjoyed by the powerful, and the impotence of successive Nationalist governments in their dealings with big fish. Ironically, Deidun’s attack on Polidano came a few days after Roderick Galdes – Labour’s representative on the MEPA board – voted in favour of a Polidano project set in one of Balzan’s characteristic gardens.
Perhaps not to be outmanoeuvred by the newcomers in her second EP outing, Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas also raised her fist in protest against the government. What was really striking was her choice of timing – calling on the government to reimburse car owners the VAT paid on vehicle registration tax sine 2004, on the same day that thousands were queuing outside the PL headquarters to file a court case for their refund.
Her independence was only enhanced by the immediate rebuke she received from Finance Minister Tonio Fenech, who reminded her that reimbursement will only create a €50 million ‘hole’.
And the latest to join the fray was Frank Portelli, the former PN president who has taken the government to court over the energy capping mechanism that allows hotels and industry to pay lower bills.
Even more outrageous – while Gonzi refused Joseph Muscat’s call for an urgent debate in parliament on immigration, disagreeing with him that Malta faced a crisis, out comes Portelli comparing the so-called crisis to the political magnitude of Raymond Caruana’s murder in 1986, when Eddie Fenech Adami called on parliament to discuss democracy, and not the budget. “I will say the same thing Eddie Fenech Adami said in 1986,” Portelli said, “everything else is irrelevant.”

Revolutionary roads?
The revolutionary patina of the Nationalist candidates seems to have not only undermined any sense of party discipline; indeed a gulf has opened up between State and party, to the extent that in next June’s election, the PN seems to be waging an electoral campaign against the Nationalist government.
But there seems to be a sinister twist to the story. The strategists behind the campaign are the same people who call the shots at Castille.
Surely the PN is in itself a broad church, especially since it specialises in co-opting and neutralising its critics. But with this strategy it has gone one step beyond. By incorporating all strands of opinions within the GonziPN revolution, it has become reminiscent of those totalitarian regimes in which ‘token opposition’ is permitted, so long as the hold of the dominant party on power is not threatened.
Take the candidature of Vince Farrugia, which despite the lack of media coverage, cannot but evoke the reviled marriage between the General Workers’ Union and the Malta Labour Party in the 1970s and 1980s. Just imagine what the PN’s reaction would have been, had Tony Zarb contested with Labour...
Ever since the times of Eddie Fenech Adami, the PN has shown a remarkable ability in managing contradictory interests in an effective coalition. But is GonziPN overstretching itself beyond the limits of a conservative centrist party, in its bid to avoid a humiliating defeat?
It might be banking on MEP elections being inconsequential affairs. MEPs have no say in the Cabinet, allowing the PN to tolerate an even broader spectrum of opinion than ever before.
But despite these rebels, the PN knows it will have to settle its dues with hunters, the Armier squatters and land speculators soon enough. Surely not everyone in the PN is comfortable with the party’s green shift, and that means the contradictions apparent may well explode in the PN’s face after June.

Going for third seat
Perversely it was Joseph Muscat to have fielded a wide spectrum of candidates, ranging from latent eurosceptics and Mintoffians, to middle-of-the-road candidates.
Vince Farrugia even revealed he was approached by Muscat to contest on a Labour ticket. One wonders by what stretch of imagination someone like Farrugia would accept to sit on the socialist benches.
But Labour’s own MEP campaign appears to be seemingly eclipsed by the PN’s ‘organised cacophony’ strategy, even though Labour candidates like Edward Scicluna and Marlene Mizzi will make strategic inroads among undecided voters.
But apart from these two candidates, the Labour ticket lacks the sparkle and the surprise element of the slowly assembled Nationalist team.
Even the political spectrum occupied by the PN seems to be vaster. Thanks to candidates like Frank Portelli – who personifies Nationalist disgruntlement – the party can succeed in halting the exodus of protest voters that made their mark back in the 2004 elections.
And despite a more authentic and consistent record on green and civil liberties issues than its many imitators, AD has yet to strike a chord with the electorate. A poor showing by AD will only boost the PN’s prospects.
It seems that with two strong candidates in Frank Portelli and Vince Farrugia, along with incumbent Simon Busuttil, the PN has launched its challenge for the third MEP’s seat.
But even if the PN fails in winning another seat, the stakes are higher this time round for Labour. For the PN anything better than the 2004 result, in which it got 40% of the vote, will be interpreted as a success. For Muscat, anything worse than the 48% gained by Alfred Sant in 2004 will be a major setback. If Muscat wins 51% he will strike a definitive blow to a one-seat majority government. But it will be no walkover.

jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt

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