Monday’s press conference spoke volumes about the Prime Minister’s apparent inability to take on board the message sent to him by the electorate last Saturday.
Defending his party’s dismal result, Gonzi acknowledged that his administration had taken unpopular decisions, but insisted that these decisions were taken with the country’s best interests at heart.
In a throw-back to the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 – which were held responsible for Malta’s ailing tourism sector all the way up to September 2006 – the global economic recession was also invoked to account for all the government’s shortcomings.
Gonzi also repeated the same old tired excuse that he himself had not explained his government’s policies well enough... as though to suggest that the ignorant electorate had once again misunderstood their benevolent master’s intentions.
But the truth is another. Lawrence Gonzi himself is in denial. While no one in his right mind would deny the relevance of the global economic crisis to Malta’s current woes, the fact remains that his government has also been inefficient, extravagant, clumsy in its implementation of delicate measures, insensitive to the genuine financial plight of citizens, and altogether too removed from people’s daily lives to realise how badly it has mishandled the water and electricity price hikes – to mention but one popular cause of disgruntlement.
In a sense it is understandable that Gonzi would be reluctant to take on board the full extent of the electorate’s message. After all, the alternative is quite simply that Gonzi himself is not a good Prime Minister. But at the same time, his claims that these decisions were taken “in the best interest of the country” now rings rather hollow, when his own Infrastructure Minister had admitted barely a week earlier that government had mishandled the hike in utilities, and that the “mistake” was attributable to the party as a whole.
At the same time the message delivered last Saturday to the Lawrence Gonzi administration seems clear enough. The many promises gift-wrapped inside the “GonziPN” package – and which won the PN the 2008 general elections by a whisker – have not to date been delivered. And there is after all a limit to how often one can fail to keep one’s word.
Apart from the revision of tax bands, Gonzi also failed to implement the much-touted MEPA reform, and to assume personal responsibility for the Planning Authority in any meaningful way. If Gonzi can hide behind oil prices and the global recession to account for unpopular economic measures, there is no immediate explanation for his failure to reform Mepa: other than the likeliest explanation possible, which is simply that... he can’t.
By the same token that a handful of illegal squatters in Armier can dictate government policy on public land-use, it is becoming increasingly evident that good intentions alone cannot override the exigencies of a money-hungry business class... especially in a country where political parties rely on regular financial contributions by entrepreneurs for their survival.
For much the same reason, Gonzi has refused to inculcate a meritocratic style of governance that would win him the people’s confidence. If anything, the politics of patronage has grown more and not less pervasive since Gonzi took over at the helm of the PN in 2003... and it has extended also to exclude PN insiders as well as Labourites, if their allegiance is not to Gonzi himself.
In a nutshell, Gonzi ignored the fact that he had been re-elected by a mere 1,500 votes, and has come close to abusing the very trust that hung on such a small majority. He underestimated his electorate’s wilfulness, the trust it gave him when it chose him for “peace of mind” and his “safe pair of hands”.
Admittedly he can argue that this was a European, not a national election, but he is unlikely to fool anyone but himself. These elections have been anything but European in content. The lack of interest in the EP elections reflected the lack of interest in matters that lay beyond our shores. Instead, the Maltese were firmly focused on their everyday lives and bread-and-butter issues. Small wonder Labour latched onto a domestic platform and never budged from its position. They read the people’s concerns and set the agenda, and in so doing caught Gonzi napping.
This election result is therefore not to be taken lightly. Just 15 months after GonziPN’s victory, the Prime Minister has been told in no uncertain terms that his “way of doing politics” has been entirely discredited. This message is a manifestation of disagreement with the churlishness of the administration in the way it introduced the new utility bills, its network of favoured entrepreneurs and political appointees, its neglect of MEPA reform, and its disregard for transparency and public procurement regulations.
Lawrence Gonzi cannot afford to treat this popular verdict with contempt.
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