J'accuse : Wasted

It’s honoraria now. You cannot blame Labour for enthusiastically fanning the flames of disgruntlement with Gonzi’s government. Muscat has just gotten away with convincing a huge chunk of the population that the Yes to Divorce was a victory achieved by Labour. It was not, and I am not being petty. Labour’s foot shuffling and dilly-dallying was neither here nor there. While you read last Sunday’s J’accuse, Muscat was busy performing logical acrobatics claiming that the PN could do nothing else but vote YES after the referendum while contemporaneously repeating his spineless line that Labour’s position on divorce was a “free vote”.

Right now Muscat and Labour could very well tell most of the population that they were the inventors behind sliced bread, electricity and nuclear fission − and many would believe them. That is how our politics works. The wave of change is once again there for Labour to miss. The sad, sad thing is that the very modalities of the divorce debate that we are fast forgetting should have been proof enough that a change for Labour will only be the trademark “same, same but different”.

Empty vessels

They may be using the honoraria business as the latest excuse to expose the rifts between factions within the Nationalist government. If the reports I am reading are correct, Muscat has managed to make this sound as a vote of choice between “the Prime Minister and the Maltese people”.

Funny how he gets to dictate what this vote really means. True, the honoraria business is a PR catastrophe of gargantuan proportions and the government deserves a huge beating for it. On the other hand I am angry at the wonderful opportunity this has given both parties to bury the gaping lacunae that were exposed by the divorce debate. Luckily, we still have a whole Bill to go through so we might have a few reminders coming up.

The biggest lacuna is the most important of them all − one that each and every voter would do well to remember from here to the next election. It can come across as a boring point but there is a practical, pragmatic side to it that might even appeal to the most cynical among us. If only we let loose our presumed allegiances and grooming that is. It has all to do with a simple question: Why do you vote for a particular party in national elections?

The representative

Sure, we vote for MPs in order of preference. Why do we choose them? Presumably because they represent the best bet we have (a) for governing the country and (b) for endorsing particular policies. More importantly, we vote for MPs backed by political parties (specifically the two parties who have the odds stacked in their favour for being elected to Parliament). And why do we choose one party over another (forgetting for one minute the tesserati)?

We choose a party because of the principles it represents. Or so we thought. Recently we were presented with another reason to vote for one party and not the other. Put briefly, that reason was “the lesser evil”. Our parties could go on wearing their ideological and principle mask of preference while posing in multi-faceted dresses as Umbrella Liquorice Allsorts Parties. In truth, voting for PN or PL stopped meaning something different quite some time ago. I performed a little exercise on J’accuse yesterday. I called it “The Wasted Vote”. Here it is…

The Wasted Vote

So you voted PN last election? You got Lawrence Gonzi and Austin Gatt. You got David Agius and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. You got Edwin Vassallo and Tonio Fenech. You got Tonio Borg and Karl Gouder. You got the party that is anti-divorce on paper but can wake up one morning and spring a Private Members’ Bill surprise. You’ve also got Joe Saliba to thank for those sleepless nights conferring title after title on Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando − from dentist to farmer to press card bearing journalist. Don’t worry though… if you’ve got a liberal streak in you there’s always Cyrus Engerer and Frank Psaila’s plan for a “social liberal” face to save the day.

So you voted PL last election? Well, actually you voted for Alfred Sant’s MLP but we know where that one went. After the tears subsided what did you get? You got Joseph Muscat and Adrian Vassallo. You got Owen Bonnici and Marie Louise Coleiro Preca. You got Marlene Pullicino and Gino Cauchi. You got a party that wants to be liberal and progressive but fails to take a simple stand on divorce. You got the inventor of the “free vote” that means that whatever the flying flip you wanted to elect to Parliament has no point anyway − because the individuals’ conscience is paramount. So was it pro-divorce Muscat that you were thinking of or was it anti-divorce Vassallo?

Have you really ever sat down and wondered what your vote translates to once the noise of the last carcade subsides, once the last billboard of empty propaganda is removed and once the last article of the spinners of hate is condemned to the bottom of your dustbin?

Funny. Last I heard, NOT voting PL or PN would turn out to be a “wasted vote”.

Vote for nobody

It’s funny how a vote that could be “wasted” on “unelectable” Alternattiva Demokratika last time round could have elected the only party in Parliament to have a clear, unequivocal position on divorce. It’s not just divorce. There will be other future issues in which the two behemoths will shuffle their feet. Already we are seeing the mediatic reinvention of PN − with calls for a “social liberal” heart (the token push) or calls for more “pragmatism” (another way of saying yes we disagree with divorce but hey votes are votes).

There is no guarantee about what you can get with the 34+ candidates elected to Parliament on the ticket of either of the PLPN parties. Will it be a renegade PLPN politician promoting abortion? Will it be another one proposing a Private Member’s Bill banning crucifixes from classes? Can we ever know? The parties are more intent on throwing their nets as wide as possible than on seeing that they represent a clear set of commitments.

Might as well elect NOBODY in an Odyssean twist. Because NOBODY will keep election promises, NOBODY will listen to your concerns, NOBODY will have a clear policy to enact (without fear of losing votes), NOBODY cares. Maybe, if NOBODY is elected then things could get better for everyone (after all Belgium has got by for a year without a government).

Or you could do better than NOBODY. You could do the intelligent thing and ignore the idiots who are still smarting from their slip the last time round. Vote for a party that is clear on its ideals and selects candidates because they share a common goal and ideas − not for the sake of catching the vote of the LBGT/singles/hunters/economists/labourers/faux-progressives… oh you know what I mean.

I’m off to Strasbourg for the Pentecost ponte in Luxembourg. We have another (Holy) holiday on Monday. Must enjoy them for as long as they last. The Luxembourg Greens have tabled a motion in Parliament asking for the institution of a national holiday that is secular and not religious. They expressly asked for “a holiday without the Te Deum”. I wonder what our MPs’ conscience would say on that one.

 

www.akkuza.com Find out more about the Church, State and Luxembourg on our site. Happy Father’s day to all dads, in particular the Chelski maniac at home and the tennis champ.

 

Related articles

• The Wasted Vote (akkuza.com)
• After the dust settles -Muscat’s Cheek (akkuza.com)
• J’accuse : Sophistry, Protagoras & San Ċipress (akkuza.com)
• Misunderstanding Eddie (akkuza.com)