The grumbling in Gonzi’s backbench means the Prime Minister is facing his most difficult moment yet. By MATTHEW VELLA
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi will look back at his most terrible week in politics since being re-elected to power last year with just 1,600 votes, and take a long, hard look at the trouble ahead.
Back in March 2008 he had failed to secure an absolute majority in a cliffhanger election which left him with a problem of legitimacy. But since then, has the Prime Minister learnt his lesson to “listen to the people”?
Not quite, it seems. Newly elected leader Joseph Muscat won his first electoral test with his Labour-lite creed and his ‘coalition of the disgruntled’. He led a campaign on popular, domestic issues: the hastily introduced utility bills and the increasing cost of living, and to an extent illegal immigration. But it was a campaign targeted at Lawrence Gonzi, or GonziPN as he was re-packaged in March 2008.
Muscat led his campaign by looking back at 15 months of GonziPN, attacking the prime minister and the decisions of his closest ministers – investments minister Austin Gatt, author of the hiked utility bills, and finance minister Tonio Fenech. He attacked them on promises they did not keep, on the retroactive billing on water and electricity right at the height of the global financial crisis, for ignoring the falling price of oil.
Muscat found the unhappiness in the electorate ripe for the picking, but it’s the swing he captured yesterday that means the tide is turning in Maltese politics.
With Labour’s absolute majority of 54-55%, the electoral swing from the 2008 elections shows Gonzi losing the people who voted him for “peace of mind” and his “pair of safe hands”. As Labour had it in its own billboards, Gonzi no longer meant peace of mind but “headache”.
So what does Gonzi do next? He faces trouble inside his party. Unhappy backbenchers and former ministers will face their leader with some questions. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s interview in MaltaToday on Sunday said as much. The PN’s secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier was nowhere to be seen in this campaign, which was led by candidate and MEP Simon Busuttil.
And Gonzi’s hollow threat to reshuffle his Cabinet will only leave him gasping for air as he estranges allies; what could that change inside the PN?
Gonzi has committed grave mistakes on the management of the country’s finances and must face the flak on irresponsible governance. His mistakes, especially the great utility rates’ hike, have cost taxpayers dearly and now he is left with egg on his face.
His problems also lie within the raison d’être of the Nationalist Party. For all its self-styled ‘europeanism’, the PN remains unwilling to shake off a conservative core on matters which alienate its liberal, middle-class vote: divorce and party financing, a dismal environmental record, and accusations of nepotism.
Gonzi has underestimated his electorate. This electoral result was a clear verdict on his government’s track record so far, and the meltdown of the repackaged GonziPN that won the 2008 elections.
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