From Gonzi cheerleader, PN candidate and trusted political appointee, to Labour’s new press officer… the unthinkable has indeed happened. JAMES DEBONO and MATTHEW VELLA chronicle Marisa Micallef’s epochal transformation, and how this speaks volumes about the shifting tectonic plates of Maltese politics
Secular and pro-divorce, against hunting and the greedy devourers of pristine land that are golf courses, the former ‘green politician of the year’ (awarded by Nature Trust) and even a self-declared supporter of the British Labour Party, Marisa Micallef’s natural political home should have never been within the confessional Nationalist Party.
But it was Alfred Sant’s anti-European stance that turned persons like Micallef (back then Micallef Leyson) into thundering pundits rooting for the Nationalist Party, firing their anti-Labour missives across the newspaper pages with endless columns of ink on EU accession.
And the PN was quick to show its appreciation, by including some of them in its system of political appointments. Micallef was one such prototype of pro-EU liberal, environmentally conscious voters who felt somewhat “obliged” to vote for the PN to keep out a loony, eurosceptic Labour from government. In turn, she was soon made chairperson of the Housing Authority, back then under the stewardship of social policy minister Lawrence Gonzi.
If Micallef, a former political appointee who spent long years heaping praise on Lawrence Gonzi (while eagerly bashing Labour and Alternattiva Demokratika alike) has done the unthinkable and crossed over to Labour, what does this say about the thousands of like-minded voters who were never rewarded for their loyalty to a party in which they never felt at home?
A short history of Marisa A former chairperson of the Housing Authority since 1998, she has occupied positions on the mental health board, the Building Industry Consultative Council, and of course, the Nationalist think-tank AZAD. Crossing over to Labour with that CV doesn’t just require guts.
After all, she was a constant target of the Labour media circus over the ‘Lay-Lay scandal’ that dogged Alfred Sant’s government, over the purchase of a Lm1.5 million housing project that did not even carry the necessary permits. Sant claimed it was housing chief executive Victor Sciberras Grioli who insisted on the promise of sale agreement being signed before the elections, and then leaked the information to the Nationalist Party, which falsely claimed a scandal.
Her political career was brief, polling just 587 first-preference votes in 1998 for the PN. Having lived in the UK for 15 years before that, she had admitted to always feeling like a fish out of water in Malta.
“I’ve always been opinionated, so I’m quite lucky that I’m one of the few women who appear on the back page of The Times. People ask me why I’m not scared to express my opinion. Obviously I’m a political appointment. But as a nation we’re too afraid to express ourselves. We blame the politicians for everything while we don’t want to do our part. The politicians won’t improve unless we do.”
She was famed for her distrust of Alfred Sant and for her denigrating of Alternattiva Demokratika, which she warned would endanger the chances of securing a Nationalist victory in 2003 and consequently, EU accession.
In one of her columns for The Times in 2001, she asked if Alfred Sant was indeed “unelectable”.
“There is only one question left after the significant shift away from the MLP to the PN shown in the latest Xarabank survey… is Alfred Sant such a liability to the MLP that it has become totally unelectable? It is almost unbelievable. The PN has been in government, save for a 22-month interlude, almost continuously since 1987... they should be trailing behind the MLP badly. But this is not the case. Eddie Fenech Adami remains the PN’s best asset while Alfred Sant remains the MLP’s biggest liability.
“… I accept that all surveys have a margin of error, but to say as [Sant] did, that these results cannot be trusted because this survey was organised by ‘militants of the PN’ almost beggars belief.”
While the PN kept up an impressive façade of unity for years, the first cracks became publicly visible in the aftermath of Gonzi’s election as leader. Ironically the first decision to be publicly criticised by PN-friendly columnists like Marisa Micallef was his decision to make Fenech Adami President.
“I can understand why Labour would find it difficult to accept him as President. I certainly would never accept Dom Mintoff as President.”
Turning of the tide So far the PN has blamed its abysmal performance in the European elections on the high levels of abstention in Nationalist districts, largely dispelling the possibility of a shift from PN to Labour.
But surveys have shown that 5% of Nationalist voters in the March 2008 general election opted for Labour in the latest round of elections.
Micallef’s defection to Labour puts a face to this statistic. It could also send the message to more hesitant ex-PN voters that it is now safe to cross the Rubicon. And unlike former defectors, like Labour MP Marlene Pullicino who hails from a rural, conservative wing of Nationalists, Micallef is an urbanite with liberal sensibilities.
Surely her defection speaks volumes of Joseph Muscat’s greatest virtue: his ability to instil trust in voters who once distrusted his predecessor. It’s his greatest asset over Sant.
Micallef’s defection to Labour is also bad news for AD, the green party. As she hedges her bets with Labour, she also sends the message to pale blue voters that the midway option is no longer necessary. They can go straight on to Labour.
She is after all a beacon of sorts when it comes to middle-class concerns. She wrote about these concerns constantly, warning the PN government that losing track of the middle-class means the middle-class will throw the government out.
Her newly visible role in Labour will also amplify the contrasts and deep divisions inside Labour. Micallef may share the same platform as secretary-general Jason Micallef, who repeatedly attacked her for expressing political views while serving as Housing Authority chairperson.
“I cannot trust public officials like Marisa Micallef who lash out against the MLP leader in their weekly columns,” he had declared in an interview published in 2006.
As a Labour public relations face, Micallef will not only find herself defending “progressive” causes like Muscat’s still personal stance for divorce, but also retrograde policies on immigration, which included a commitment to disown Malta’s international obligations to rescue migrants.
Micallef the environmentalist will also find herself defending the party’s stance in defence of the tuna industry, its silence on major development projects, and its pandering to the vote of all disgruntled categories irrespective of the legitimacy of their claims. It might yet be the biggest test for her conscience.
However, this will not be a new experience for someone used to zero-sum politics: some things never change.
But most notably last week, she wrote in to the Times, hinting that she had not even voted in the past general election. She called herself a “former PN voter”, part of a “very broad definition of the Maltese and Gozitan PN-voting middle class.” It seems Micallef had now completed the metamorphosis.
She said that despite the enormous anti-government feeling, “clever campaigning and the crowning of the PN leader as king, metaphorically speaking of course” changed all that. And she even said Joseph Muscat had ensured “electability” was within reach.
She denigrated the Nationalists’ “rottweillers” – a not-so veiled reference to Daphne Caruana Galizia – who “belittle anyone who opposes” the Nationalist administration: “Anyone who doesn’t yet know what I mean should follow some of the online attacks on Astrid Vella and Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar. This really has become an administration that will brook no criticism.”
And she prescribed for Labour to attract people with experience who “very understandably and from bitter experience, no longer have faith in the PN’s way of running everything for the few by the few.”
Was she talking about herself?
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