Category: Politics

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Politics

Frankly it's Franco

The debate in parliament has begun in earnest and the Times of Malta reports Franco Debono’s intervention. The young (no longer youngest) nationalist parliamentarian is busy calling a spade a spade and exploring possibilities of what could have been done and what can be done. Here’s Franco’s (reported) words:

The auditor also spoke about Enemalta having been placed at risk because prototype equipment had been selected. He had pointed to administrative shortcomings, rather than irregularities. He also said he found no hard evidence of corruption. Suspicion, however strong, remained just that unless it was proved, Dr Debono said. The auditor had not found any violation of the laws which would annul the contract. But he said that some things could have been handled differently.

Quite so. If you feel “involved” with Maltese politics – a bit more involved than, let’s say, the UK election would grip you – then you would find this Auditor’s report business quite interesting. The governmental reaction has raised more than a few eyebrows: the bulldozering trademark arrogance of Austin Gatt, the enigmatic responses of PM Gonzi and the foot-in-mouth syndrome that seems to have afflicted Tonio Fenech do nothing to reassure the voter about its capability of handling such situations.

A tender process is about administration. A power plant is about future costs, future environment and future quality of life. Brushing the ugly incosistensies highlighted by the Auditor’s report under the carpet is surely not the way forward. The government’s reaction gives the impression of being as knee-jerk as it is opaque. You do not have to be an energy expert like Profs Mallia to smell that not all is well with the particular options that would be purchased by this tainted contract. The Times editorial had some harsh words for the government on the 5th May:

It would seem that often enough the government is acting rashly as in its enthusiasm to defend itself at all costs it fails to adequately assess the implications of assessments made by those whom it asks to investigate. This has glaringly been the case in the Fairmount ship conversion contracts and, even more so, in that of the award of the contract for new power generation plant at Delimara. It is all very well for the government to say now that it would seriously look into the recommendations made by the Auditor General in the case of the Delimara contract. But the investigation is as yet inconclusive. The mind simply boggles at the number of serious shortcomings listed by the Auditor General. (…) Good governance, propriety and accountability demand that the tale in both cases does not end before the whole truth is found.

Franco Debono’s intervention in parliament tonight is commendable and encouraging. His is the first voice from the government seats to move beyond the hide and seek played over the past week. He may yet vote with the government when push comes to shove but he has now gone on record indicating the necessary remedies for the shortcomings that we have witnessed until now.

Much as Joseph Muscat would like it to seem so, the BWSC contract is not the be all and end all of this government’s term. His grandstanding on the issue – calling for government MPs to vote against the contract, requesting live broadcast on PBS for the parliamentary debate and threatening future “action” risks making a mockery of a valid political point.

The political point is that certain administrative practices must change. The political point is that considerations to be made when administering for the public – tendering contracts for roads, power stations and the like – must no longer be the pocket of entrepreneurs and cliques – they must be the real interests of the people.

Franco Debono makes an interesting step in parliament today. It is not enough. It will not be enough. Nevertheless it is commendable and needs support and encouragement.

Renegade yes, but for a reason.

Meanwhile:

Labour MP Evarist Bartolo concluded his speech saying:

The Labour MP said he agreed with Nationalist MP Franco Debono on the need for a law to regulate political party funding and transparency in this area, so that one would not have corrupt gangs who controlled how decisions were taken.

UPDATE

Listening to audio transmission from Parliament. Minister Tonio Fenech reads from the audiotr’s report “With the benefit of handsight (sic)”… not the best pronunciation. A few seconds later he addresses the opposition “Nispera li tifhmu ghax bl-Ingliz”. We hope so to… between deliverer and recipient there’s not much hope for the Queen’s English is there?

UPDATE II

Just listening to Joseph Muscat makes you sit down and weep. This is not a politician. It is a quasi-journalist living a dream. How can you be “involved” in local politics and not despair at the sad, sad choice that is available to voters. Where are our LibDems???

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Politics

Fawlty Electoral Systems

John Cleese explains Proportional Representation in a promo for the SDP/Liberal Alliance in the 1983 campaign. Thanks to CC for the pointer.
You may not be “involved” (now now, that’s a lazy argument innit?) but it’s intellectually educational – whatever that may mean (yawn).

“Compromise is not a dirty word.” Bipartisanism is.

Interesting:

A Constitutional discussion for proportional representation for the island of Saint Lucia (former British Colony).

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Politics

Superstition

If you’re an England supporter and ever so slightly superstitious then you should be rooting for Labour. The general election of March 1966 elected Harold Wilson‘s Labour vindicating his early call in order to increase his then slender majority of seats. Four months later England’s  football team would lift the world cup for the first and only time.

There’s all sorts of superstitions or quirks related to elections. One has to do with rain. Apparently Labour voters are supposed to be more likely deterred by bad weather – though this theory has been rubbished in practice.

For Italy supporters there’s another interesting coincidence. Three times out of four the team winning the campionato before an Italy world cup success has been Juventus: 1934, 1982, 2006. The odd one out has been Bologna (1938). Inter won a pre-WC league in 1954 and 1966. In 1954 Italy were eliminated in the first round by Switzerland (4-1 in playoff). In 1966 they also failed to pass the first round hurdle when they were eliminated by the memorable Pak Doo Ik goal (North Korea).

I’d hate to be an Italy supporter this year!

Harold Wilson
Image by rofanator via Flickr
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Politics

Hang On – UK election unfolds

It’s the last day before voting day and the three main parties in the UK have unleashed their last attempts to lure voters to their fold. Or should it be to scare voters away from their opponents’ fold? The Fear Factor, redolent of the Top Trumps Horror Series, has become a major player in this election that could have seismic consequences on the British electoral system.

Here, for example, is the Daily Mail’s toon – moved to the front page today for extra punch. MAC (the cartoonist) depicts the obvious choice for anyone toying between the (LibDem friendly) hung parliament and what the Tories would see as an alternative: strong government.

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Mac on the Mail

In it’s front page article the Mail is ruthless on those “wrong-headed” individuals toying with the idea of a hung-parliament. And the usual suspect arguments are out – shot at the crowd with wanton abandonment.

The Mail cannot stress too strongly how wrong-headed and dangerous it believes this view is. Whoever wins the election, Britain will desperately need bold, decisive government if we’re to avoid the nightmare into which Greece has been plunged. A hung parliament, with the probability of a coalition or pact, will result in a weak administration, dependent on back-room deals and shabby compromises.

Now now. A bold, decisive government like Mr Brown’s (and Blair’s before it did preside over the initial tsunami of banking and financial chaos but this is not the time to remind the giddy electors is it?

Labour has used the Blair trump to “shake some sense” into the “hung parliament voter”.  In what sounds like a more sensible approach Blair admonished Labour voters who thought of voting tactically (LibDem) to keep the Tories out. The Guardian reports Blair shooting down the LibDems :

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Tony Blair: Fear Factor '97

The Telegraph pulled out all sorts of rabbits out of its hat. The YouGov poll showing LibDems down to 24% and a surge for Labour to 30% provides the background to a number of anti-hung parliament possibilities. There’s the possible deal with Northern Ireland’s Unionists (better the coalition partner you can chew), or (sit down before you read this) Simon Cowell‘s backing Cameron as “the prime minister Britain needs at this time”. They did say that the TV debates had an X Factor feel about them but hey… Simon Cowell??

If the backing of multi-millionaire Cowell would not dissuade Tory voters from voting LibDem then you had the good old guilt by affinity – remember the “zokk u fergha“? “Clegg styles himself as successor to Blair” – it doesn’t get any scarier for a down and out Tory does it?

For an interesting take on the world outside “tribal pulls” read the Times’ resident genius Finkelstein. Unlike most Brits he never felt the tribal pull so he does not find it difficult to opt for Cameron this time round:

So, annoyingly, this election will be determined by people fighting a tribal urge that I’ve never felt and can’t completely relate to. The best I can offer is this: once I considered myself on the centre Left, and I don’t any more. And once I, too, had “never voted Tory”, but in the end I didn’t find it very difficult at all.

Then there’s Rachel Sylvester (Off with their heads! Soon the cuts will begin) who has identified a bit of the “trash and destroy” in the UK campaign too:

They would like us to think that their inspiration is Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. But in fact, as the country prepares to go to the polls, the political parties seem to have been more influenced by Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.

Gordon Brown yesterday described the Tory manifesto as a “horror show”. Labour’s recent election broadcast featured a tax inspector with a clipboard going, like the Grim Reaper, from house to house telling families which tax credits and cancer treatments they will lose if David Cameron wins on May 6. It was scare mongering of the worst kind.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are trying to terrify the electorate about the prospect of a hung Parliament with posters featuring a noose. To me the subliminal message was “Vote Tory, get hung”, an eccentric strategy for a party trying to shed a “nasty” image caused in part by rightwingers’ support for capital punishment. Their other most memorable image was a pair of bovver boots.

Nick Clegg is picking up support because he looks like a different kind of politician, one who does not engage in the petty squabbling and negative campaigning of the “two old parties”. But my local Liberal Democrat candidate has just delivered a leaflet that has only one message, printed in huge capital letters across it: “I don’t trust politicians either.” From a man who is himself trying to become an MP, it looks less like a new politics than the same old dirty tricks.

I just love Sylvester’s conclusion. The dilemma is very much alive in the UK as it will be in Malta come next election:

Like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this campaign has got curiouser and curiouser. With Nick Clegg going from Churchill to a Nazi in less than a week, Gordon Brown meeting an Elvis impersonator and David Cameron pulling the head off a chicken, there has been something surreal to the whole thing — and not just in spin alley. The election itself will be a bit like the Queen of Hearts’ declaration: “Sentence first — verdict afterwards!” But will the voters also soon shout: “Off with their heads”?

Queen of Hearts 2.jpg
Hang or Behead - Fear Factor Unknown

addendum:

Back in 2008 when the attacks on the “Wasted Voters” were akin to the carpet bombing of Dresden on a bad day I had written an open letter on J’accuse (Daphne’s Invigilators) in answer to their attacks. That it is still very relevant two years on says much about how far we are advancing locally.

Guardian Special: General Election 2010 press coverage the day before

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Mediawatch Politics

Hang the Parliament

An excellent promo for the Vote for Change in the UK. Is this momentum gathering or the last chance to change a system?

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Politics

Extracts for Change

This Sunday’s Observer editorial is all about endorsing Nick Clegg as the candidate of change. There’s some interesting extracts that discuss subjects relevant to our local (Maltese) realities too:

First there’s that echo of the argument of the “wasted vote”. Clegg’s rise in popularity has prompted a harsher approach by the Labservative front against the potential LibDem voter. We are familiar with the attack of “irresponsible”, “toying with vote” and other similar slurs thrown at anybody considering a vote outside the PLPN fold. When you are in the thick of it and the onus of the vote is immediate it is probably a bit more difficult to notice how false in democratic terms that kind of accusation is.

For what is voter emancipation all about if not for the right to choose the party that best reflects his or her options. When Labservative or PLPN candidates or pundits arrogantly attack the voter as “irresponsible” they are only demonstrating a lack of respect to the very voters’ principles:

The Conservatives have spent much energy campaigning against that outcome. They have publicised their irritation that voters could deprive David Cameron of a majority much better than they have explained why he deserves one in the first place. Mr Cameron warns portentously that a coalition might lead to instability, economic jeopardy and “more of the old politics”. Perversely, he also rejects the need to change the current voting system, which has, he says, the merit of delivering clear results. Except this time it might not. What then? Mr Cameron’s view is that the system would work fine, if only everyone voted Conservative. This is sophistry draped in hypocrisy. He backs first past the post, while agitating against one of the outcomes that is hard-wired into it. He is campaigning against the voters instead of pitching for their support. He defines change in politics as the old system preserved – but run by the Tories.

That is the crux actually. The establishment politician is so ingrained in the system that he does not notice the arrogant folly of his own assertions. The “insult” to voters considering a third way is probably not seen as such from their point of view. To te PLPN/Labservative person dishing out advice it is more of an “eye-opener” – they are blissfully ignorant of how hopelessly perverse their assertion is.

Then there is the argument that the third parties have led an easy life and would not be so attractive an option when in government:

The Lib Dems have in recent years developed a habit of getting things right. They were first of the big three to embrace environmentalism, first to kick back against the assault on civil liberties, alone in opposing the Iraq war. The conventional riposte to those boasts is that the Lib Dems were free to take idealistic positions because they knew they would never be tested in government. Thus is political courage denigrated as a luxury of eternal opposition.

Which leads us to the Observer’s final declaration of bias (it’s normal, it’s done and it’s nice to see when it is openly declared):

There is a moral imperative to consider in this election, distinct from the old Labour-Tory contest. Opinion polls throughout the campaign suggest that the country wants the Lib Dems to take a place of equal standing alongside the other main parties. A grossly unfair voting system has historically deprived them of that right. It is vital this time that they win a mandate for real change expressed in the overall share of the vote, not just in the discredited distribution of seats in parliament. There is only one party on the ballot paper that, by its record in the old parliament, its manifesto for the new one and its leader’s performance in the campaign, can claim to represent an agenda for radical, positive change in politics. That party is the Liberal Democrats. There is only one way clearly to endorse that message and that is to vote Liberal Democrat.