Snapshot #1: Busuttil – the gaffer from Europe?

When the John Dalli musical chairs finally came to an end the Nationalist Party thought that it had found itself a new champion. Simon Busuttil, the new party deputy leader was supposed to help start lifting the party out of the doldrums and more importantly he was to be the projected face of change. This blog took all this with a pinch of salt and even after the other new addition from Europe (Grech) was added on the Labour side of the equation we remained cautiously observant for one simple reason. We did not take the “new style from Europe” as an automatic given.

Simon had taken to stressing his lack of experience in the local way of doing politics and was a ready accomplice in the implication that he had developed a “european” style of politics in his stint at the EP. At the time J’accuse stopped short of applauding and simply asked: Show me the money.

Well by now we can definitely say that the nationalist party has been short changed. From his first exhortation to the PN masses to take their message to the grocer’s (did someone mention the moonies) to the latest slip regarding Deborah Schembri’s supposedly nationalist face, Simon has betrayed a knack to slip incredibly on all sort of contrived bananas. There’s something more than these obvious warts underlying the former EP star’s foray into Maltese politics. His reported interventions are still straight out of the partisan textbook – an us and them approach peppered with the kind of style typical of PN politicians that has often attracted the “arrogant” label. If change was meant to be then Simon did not deliver.

What seems to be at work here is the effect of the chasm between Brussels and the various locations of PN’s Tined ta’ Djalogu (Dialogue Tents). As a friend put it, Simon is suffering from the effects of on-the-ground politics that is ever so different from the detached picture he could have received in his time in Brussels. The EP after all is an (important) talk-box that cannot afford to work on partisan lines in the same manner as our “winner takes all” politics does. Simon would have liked to reap the benefits of his success in the EP and bring them over to Malta but he ignored one important factor.

The EP ambience creates success stories of MEPs across the political spectrum. There is no “winner takes all” in the EP, rather there is an institution working in its interests and (sometimes) in the interests of those who elected its members. The mere fact that so many political formations are represented proportionally in the parliament obliges MEPs to engage in reasoned discussion on real issues. Simon left that fertile ground and mistakenly assumed that he could achieve similar results in the Maltese environment.

What he did find is the antagonistic bipartisan system engaged in yet another nihilistic electoral campaign. Auctions for gimmicks, personality clashes and the media wars leave little space for Simon to practice what he had appreciated and benefited from in a European environment. So Simon switched to his instinct. He may deny having been active in party politics before leaving for Europe (even though he claims to have written the 2008 manifesto and programme) but he managed to adapt very quickly back to the old style partisan style.

Once the sums are made up it will probably turn out that the PN’s Simon gambit has not really paid out. The direst verdict is on our political system – the fields in which our politicians are allowed to flourish – it has proven to be much tougher and much more resistant than any supposedly “European” style that could have been imported.

Once again the greater losers are the voters. That, at least, remains an immutable universal truth.