PN

The politics of denial

Something’s going all Pete Tong in the Nationalist party pre-electoral strategy. Either that or the  powers of self-persuasion among some people must be unnaturally high. If a week is a long time in politics then surviving the minefield of a combined JPO & Franco Debono assault on the stability of a slender parliamentary majority for almost a year is quite a feat. For a long time we had to make do with the histrionics of a party in government attempting to horse-trade its way to the end of the last parliamentary session. The nationalist government alternated from a policy of accommodation to hard-bargaining with the volatile requests of the rebel MPs.

By the time Parliament went into recess we had an obvious situation of Cohabitation Government with Pullicino Orlando and an undefinable shape-shifting relationship with Franco. So long as parliament had been in session Franco Debono’s clout with the PN was simply stated as that extra vote needed to guarantee a governing stability. With the recess came the PN’s definite confirmation that Franco Debono would not be standing for another election in its name (and that instead the electorate would be regaled with the unenviable choice of such party stalwarts as Emmanuel Arriva Delia).

Parliament is still in recess. Franco Debono is not. One of his latest posts is dedicated to pointing out that while school is starting parliament is still “on a break”. A laborious read through Franco’s blog will also lead anyone with a brain between his ears to one conclusion: this man has undoubtedly chosen to break ranks from the party (or rather realised that there is no place for him therein). Bridges are being burnt with every misspelt word that appears on his blog. There will be no more horse-trading. No more appeasement. No more winning of valuable time. The time for Franco to be consigned to the footnotes of history is fast approaching (see the J’accuse “When Franco is history“).

Which brings me to the questionable strategy mentioned at the start. For a long time it seemed obvious that the only use that Gonzi’s PN had left for Franco was as the final trigger before the election. It was evident that the PN government’s last move would be to force Franco to be the catalyst for the end of this legislature and the beginning of the next. So far so good and Machiavellian. The rebel MP seemed to be slow on the uptake at first but has now sussed up to this plan and seems determined not to fall into the trap of becoming the ultimate scapegoat.

Which makes all the songs and dances emanating from Pietà rather incongruous. On the one hand there is the general theme of “all is fine and dandy and it would be even better had we not had the minor inconvenience of Franco Debono” and on the other there is the “we will remain in government so long as we enjoy the confidence of parliament”. Now it was one thing before summer to allow public opinion to dither as to whether or not the latest confidence vote would be clinched by “convincing” unsettled backbenchers. We could dismiss the horse-trading to nervous shifts within the power structures of an ageing government. It is another thing though for Lawrence Gonzi to speak to the assembled faithful in Floriana and act as though Franco Debono’s blog is just a bad dream.

What do you mean so long as we enjoy the confidence of parliament Lawrence? Surely it is also clear to you, following this summer’s shifts in the rules of the game, that any kind of confidence you might believe you enjoy is entirely superficial? As David Guetta’s music played and the new breed of nationalist (what nationalist exactly) candidates marched onto the stage (Without You!) sans Franco we were entitled to ask: for how long more this charade of denial?

Yes denial. Because no matter what the PN strategists might try to sell you now, the setting of an election is a decision that is fast slipping from their hands. We were prepared to tip our hat to a strategic victory that meant winning valuable time over the summer months for a regathering of the forces and (re)drafting of a final electoral strategy. The delay strategy might backfire though if extended to an illogical period beyond the convincingly realistic. For Lawrence Gonzi to resume the “government as usual” spiel in September while the evidence all around him points to anything but that might be a hard act to convince even the most blinkered of nationalist flag-wavers.

Financial estimates, votes of confidence… Gonzi’s PN is lucky if it gets to the finish line and the cutting of the ribbon at the new parliament complex. There’s that and the amount of time being wasted focusing on the almost has-been rebels when much could be done at the moment exposing the faux politics upon which Labour and its Potyemkin Congress has embarked.

The botched strategy at the moment points to a possibly bigger fault line within the party itself that goes farther than Franco Debono and the tantrums of the discontent. One could hypothesise that various strands within the Pieta party have already smelt the scent of an inevitable loss at the polls and most efforts are being channelled into the post-electoral battles that will define the new post-Gonzi PN. That would explain the new alliances and alignments when it comes to candidates and districts and it would explain why little or nothing seems to be done in terms of real election campaign tactics.

Above all – and now more than ever – it seems that together it is no longer possible.

From Sarkozy to Saatchi & Saatchi

It’s out. The Nationalist party has “launched” a new billboard – complete with press release and comments by the party President. The PN is really trying its darned best to water down the importance of a press release and a press conference. First we had PBO calling not one but two press conferences and now Marthese Portelli, Tonio Fenech and Chris Said were wheeled out in order to explain… a billboard. You know that your billboard campaign has started on the wrong foot when you need to explain or, worse still, justify the content.

While the 2008 campaign was wrought with messages of “taste” and “guilt by association”, the PN in 2012 is resolute in reminding us how much of Labour’s current lineup has its roots way back when the Commodore 64 was launched (note the nerdy reference here). One thing has not changed – the absence of original thought in the creative department. In 2008 we had the plagiarised Sarkozy slogan “ensemble tout est possible” and for 2012 the PN has kicked off with a plagiarised poster from the UK Conservative party campaign back in 1979.

Do note how Marthese Portelli takes care not to mention the Conservative party in her “explanation”. The emphasis in some quarters is on “Saatchi & Saatchi” – you know, the Versace of political campaigns. Like that should make the whole plagiarising business disappear instantly. I wonder whether Saatchi & Saatchi could claim any royalties for this “cut and paste” job – which might go some way into explaining PBO’s estimates for billboard costs.

The original poster did say “Labour isn’t working” (changed to “Labour won’t work” for obvious reasoning) but it also had a little addendum: “Britain’s better off with the conservatives”. Now that’s vanished of course – and I am quite sure the PR department is smart enough not to deviate the attention of the voter with the assertion “Malta’s better off with the nationalists”. Because that is essentially the part of the formula the PN cannot afford to gamble on. The campaign HAS to focus on Labour’s perceived inadequacy to govern (and Labour goes quite a long way in reinforcing that perception) but it also HAS to shift the focus away from the current state of the nationalist party.

So. Are we better off with the conservatives? What is the PN doing to allay fears that their conservative elements will not dominate a future legislature? Well. Right now we have the rush to change laws on expression, the IVF bill with all its controversies and a number of other minor laws crying for attention (still slapping nudists with criminal fines are we?).

In the end this is not a game changer but it is a clear indication that the nationalist party will definitely find it tough going if it were to act as though all were fine and dandy. And it will take much more than an article by a human rights lawyer to convince the intelligent voter that the PN vote is the vote for change.

 

The politics of serenity

I don’t know whether Carm Mifsud Bonnici has his own facebook account – though I know that he does blog on a regular basis. If he does have a facebook account – or if he did – it would be fitting if his current status read “serene”. He told reporters that felt serene both before and after the vote of confidence and this because he was prepared for every eventuality. Kudos to Carm Mifsud Bonnici who has opted to put on a brave display of cool, calm and a very Christian (democrat) form of zen. It is no coincidence that the emotional and physical behaviour of Mifsud Bonnici provide a stark contrast to the picture of a power hungry, angry and revengeful Franco Debono.

Joseph Muscat may have stressed the fact that this government (read the parliamentary group) remains divided and that no amount of confidence motions survived with the speaker’s vote or that of a recalcitrant Debono will improve the situation but the leader of the progressive movement may be missing the wood for the trees. The lack of political acumen in Labour is ever so glaringly obvious when they persist in error. The very rift that caused glee among labourite supporters and among those nationalists who are dying to spite GonziPN by seeing the end of it is the very foundation upon which the nationalist party’s potential revival is built upon.

How I hear you ask? Well to begin with the issue of the CMB motion was an eye opener of itself. Politics as it should be was nowhere to be seen. You may get the sweeping statements about the “unjust justice system” and you may have an opposition spokesman turning a list of grievances about the courts, the police and the laws into a show of unhappiness. What we did have in actual terms however was a bloodthirsty attack at the throat of an ex-Minister – for by the time the motion was presented (and amended into a call for resignation) that was what CMB had become.

If the subject of the motion had been the supposedly disastrous state of affairs in the justice ministry then the only resignation that should have been demanded – and a symbolic one at that – should have been of the Minister currently in charge of the portfolio. That would be Minister Chris Said. So many lessons of ministerial responsibility, collective responsibility, governmental responsibility had been given in press conferences and long-winded speeches that one would have expected this motion to be directed at the right person. But no.

And it is evident why not. Because politics and responsibility had nothing to do with this motion. Whether or not you agree with the ills that befell our justice and security systems in the past few years, your cause, your petita was not considered one bit. Instead – as has been widely documented – this was a vendetta. It was personal.

J’accuse has elsewhere complained about the use of certain terminology in politics. The martyr complex, the excessive descriptions of “suffering” and “hurt”. A large part of our voting masses reason in these terms. It is no crude calculation on the basis of policies but rather a complex build up of emotions where a partisan DNA struggles with feeling of entitlement, chips on the shoulder and some weird collective illusion that politicians suffer whenever they “serve” the people.

Carm Mifsud Bonnici’s serene acceptance of the inevitable outcome of the vendetta plot is no cup of hemlock. It is a rallying call. Strategically the moment of serenity is a necessary stroke of genius. Given that the political battle on a national level seems to have taken the direction of being fought out on the emotional rather than the factual fields then might as well take the cue early in this pre-election run. Mifsud Bonnici’s serenity comes out stronger when contrasted to the actions of his self-appointed nemesis Debono and that of the braying power-or-nothing pitchfork gang on the benches of the opposition.

We would have thought that exposing the absolute vacuum that is Labour’s sum total of projects and preparedness for its time in government would have been enough for PN to have a field day. On second thoughts and having seen the latest events unfold we cannot but applaud the emotional counter-moves that have begun to surface. If anything it will distract attention from the embarassing gaffes being committed in the social marketing field – better known as the mychoice.pn campaign.

PM.pn – auctioning off the prime minister

I’m afraid that I may be a little late on this one since I was still lounging by the pool when this “initiative” made the headlines. To be quite honest when I first heard of it I thought it was a joke – a funny “tickle me under the arms” affair that goes by the name of satire these days. Could it be that the lads at Bis-Serjetà pulled off another “The Onion” inspired headline?  Sadly my first hunch was wrong and the Partit Nazzjonalista was really offering its followers a chance to “become PM for a day” (and win an iPad 3 to boot).  Here is how the Independent reported the possible winnings (PN launches “Be PM for a day”):

The winner of this contest will be handed the opportunity to propose one particular idea or project, as well as naming his or her own members of Cabinet and members of parliament from their acquaintances. The winner will spend a whole day with the Prime Minister on Tuesday, 19 June during which he or she will get to meet the press, tour the corridors of Castille, and discuss policy ideas with Dr Gonzi.

Now this idea of “reaching out” to the public by one of our two political parties smacks of “wrong” in so many ways that I risk missing out on some of them if I do not turn them into a “list”. In these days when marketing and snazzy websites might trump content many people might think that this move is actually “good”, we beg to differ and here is why:

1. PN (a party) – PM (a head of government)

The first and most obvious objection to this crass exercise of X Factor meets Castille is the fact that a party initiative, kicking off from a party website is auctioning off the role of a government position. Not just any government position but THE BIG KAHUNA. It’s the PM seat for chrissakes and they are not even playing make believe. For it would be one thing if the winner would “fake” being Prime Minister and play along in a sort of re-enactment with his friends and the press… you know a sort of King Carnival but for politics. But it’s another thing when our Prime Minister is actually part and parcel of the prize. Which brings me to point two…

2. Does not PM Gonzi have better things to do?

After all what with all these ridiculous motions by the opposition, an economy to hold steady and a government with that perilous one seat majority you would expect a Prime Minister to spend his time in better ways than prancing around with a make believe duplicate addressing press releases about fancy projects from the citizen. What does he expect them to come up with? Something fantastical? A tunnel to Gozo perhaps?

3. The Miseducation of Joe Citizen

Once we’re on this play acting business, even if we were prepared to play along with the party game then there is the not too irrelevant business of education. If we really are trying to get something out of this exercise how about not drumming home the idea that the PM is such a powerful man that he names “his or her own members of Cabinet and members of parliament from their acquaintances”. I mean for crying out loud do they not even stop and read what they propose? A PM choosing members of parliament? From their acquaintances? What shall we call it? “Il-parlament tal-ħbieb (tal=ħbieb) tal-Prim Ministru”? A prime minister does not choose members of parliament – the people do. That’s lesson number one in basic democratic skills innit?

4. Tour the corridors of Castille and discuss policy

Seriously. I was under the impression that Castille had its open days during the nuits blanches that are thrown every now and then. Anybody could get to walk into Castille and shake Dr Gonzi’s hand. As for policy – this is running a bit thin isn’t it? I mean is this the best “listening” the PN can do?

The “Be a PM for a day” is an exercise that would be more fitting in Azerbaijan than in Malta. Yet it is happening and the danger is that it is actually being taken seriously by the fourth estate and the voters who are meant to be more demanding on our politicians and their parties. What next? Shall we bring Simon Cowell in to evaluate the contestants? After all guys like Christian Peregin might have a conflict of interest selecting the winner while also interviewing them on the day they got to play PM.

Strength and resilience. Lord knows that we’re going to need much of those till election time.

 

I.M. Jack – the March Hare (I)

1. The State of the Parties

(PN) It’s over for GonziPN – or so seems to be the general opinion in the punditry pages. Following Gonzi’s landslide victory in the one-man race poll (96.6%) we are seeing a definite shift away from the one-man monolith that was victorious last election and a contemporaneous effort to re-establish roots among the electorate. Which leaves us with a number of conclusions and concerns.

First of all insofar as the business of governance is concerned, the PN General Council vote has not changed much. Even with a repentant Debono returning into the fold (his idea of repentance being that he believes he was proved right) the lasting impression is of a party that will go to any lengths to survive a full term in power. The dissidents within the fold excluded themselves from the 96%, mostly by abstaining. Meanwhile the “papabili” such as De Marco or Busuttil rallied behind the leader.

The PN remains a fragmented party in search of a definition. The signs coming from the minor tussles in Local Council campaigns are not positive. The fragility of the very fabric that should be keeping the party together is evident with its dealings with past and prospective candidates. There is however a silent larger picture with the usual suspects seeming to prefer a “silenzio stampa” to the noise we had become accustomed to.

Might there be a new strategy in the making? Is the transition back from GonziPN to PN a superficial diversion from deeper moves that might bring about a timely resetting of the PN modus operandi? Above all, are we dealing here with the proverbial “too little, too late”?

J’accuse vote: Brownian Motion.

(PL) Not much to be added here. The PL’s only consistency is its constant assault on the weak points of governance. The strategy of blaming every ill -imagined or real – on “GonziPN” is combined with procedural and psychological pressures to push a teetering government off the seat of power.

The prolonged lifeline of the current government might soon turn out to be the PL’s weakness. While Joseph gleefully repeats the “iggranfat mas-siggu tal-poter” mantra he fails to appreciate that the longer he is prancing about as the “prattikament Prim Ministru” the more he will actually set people wondering whether he has what it takes to carry out the job. How long they will be happy with his evasive answers as to actual plans might be anybodies guess but it might soon be time to stop taking bets.

J’accuse vote: Hooke’s Law.

(AD) Like the football team intent on surviving the drop AD can only plan its strategy step by step. Don’t blame the outfit for concentrating on the Local Council elections for now, General Elections can wait. AD may be short of manpower but they could have been greedy and fielded more candidates irrespective of their quality in areas such as Sliema where they could expect a huge backlash at the outgoing council’s farce. Instead AD are content to field their single version of a “heavyweight” with party chairman Briguglio.

Don’t expect many people to look at AD’s manifesto, which is a pity. The most the small party can hope is to get some mileage and exposure that could serve as a platform for an assault on the impossible come the next General Election.

J’accuse vote: Small Hadron Collider.

(Blogs) They’re not a political party but they’re evolving too. We are in a positive boom phase with more blogs than you could care to count (or read in a day). That is definitely positive. Expect to find more of the short-lived instruments – the lunga manu of party propaganda. Expect to be surprised that notwithstanding what is now a long internet presence (at least five years of growing internet readership) we will find that users (mostly readers) have trouble coming to terms with the immediacy and interactivity of the net. Most importantly the ability of your average voter to use his meninges to sieve through the information shot in his direction is about to be severely tested.
J’accuse vote : Blog and be damned.

 

Malta Post-Franco (II) – Franco

There could be no other place to begin than with the main protagonist. Franco Debono kept the whole nation waiting with bated breath for the unfolding of whatever his plan might be. Notwithstanding his declared agenda it was hard to second guess where he may be going with it – especially since the timing of most of his decisions seemed to be misjudged and more importantly because whatever plans he had were constantly outshone by his ego.

It could be that in order to fight the establishment you do need balls the size of Mosta dome and it is also a fact that in Malta short of renting an applaud-me crowd of hacks and elves you end up having to blow your own trumpet. It could be all that and more but there seemed to be more than one point where Franco Debono seemed to have lost the plot.

To be fair most of the contents of Franco Debono’s list of grievances survive the test of political sanity. They are far from being a Norman Lowell style list of anachronistic or loony policies. Taken individually some of the minor points (cassette tapes in court) tend to remove  the shine from a plan that includes wholistic institutional reform and a strong direct challenge to the PLPN lifeline of unregulated party financing. Franco Debono has done more for the cause of highlighting the problems of our duopolistic rush to mediocrity than anyone else in the last twenty years. So what  went wrong?

Well beyond the egomaniacal self-aggrandisement and the scattered presentation of the grievances, Franco Debono’s biggest problem was one: timing. It is always a pertinent question to ask when analysing the news: Why Now? Why indeed did Franco rock the boat when he did? Franco’s edginess became pronounced following the divorce vote in parliament – Dr Gonzi’s vote against the popular vote seems to have done the trick. The problem is that judging by what Franco has to say nowadays there is no real correlation between the divorce vote and the problems he highlights.

From day one, this government has always been at risk of being at the mercy of a one-seat renegade. As I pointed out early after last election, GonziPN might have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat but this was done at a the expense of stability. It was not just the one seat-majority but also the pick’n’mix of candidates that were virtually an undeclared coalition of disparate ideas and agendas patched together simply to garner votes.

So why does Franco wait till the dying moments of this legislature before dropping the big bomb? The urgency of institutional reform and of electoral reform did not occur overnight. The question of “cliques” running our political parties – a direct consequence of their internal systems adapting to the parallel mechanisms of power on a national scale – were also there from Day 1. So why now?

The outcome of last Thursday’s vote might point to a compromise having been reached. Did Franco get a promise that the legislation he wants will be passed through parliament? That’s highly unlikely. You do not prepare a “wholistic change” to constitutional structures in six months. Even the much taunted Party Financing bill risks running into a 3/4 majority parliament wall should it attempt to introduce crimes for violations of electoral law.

So if that was not the compromise what was? The hunch we have is that Franco is attempting to change the power hierarchies of the nationalist party by threatening the stability of government. The hints are there – his calls for PM Gonzi’s resignation are qualified with additional calls that he should change his ring of advisors and that a number of ministers’ heads should roll. Ironically Debono sees the strongest justification for filling the party hierarchies (and Ministries) as being popular support : universal suffrage.

So Debono’s timing for the party financing and reform laws blew the wind out of his sails as to whether or not he is the great champion of reform. Instead the timing of his abstention and all that surrounds it points to the real battle he seems to be engaging: an internal one within the PN hierarchy. Either Don Quixote has chosen the wrong windmill to battle or he has identified the wrong priority.

Again Debono stands as living proof of the wrong perception that PLPN politics has of our nation’s constitutional construct. Oftentimes we use the word “arrogant” to describe politicians. Well the arrogance of PLPN political thought lies in the fact that to them the constitutional institutions and the rules governing them are there to serve the party and its need to fit in a duopolistic system of alternation.

Which is what leads a backbencher who is suddenly thrust into a chair of dizzying slim-majority power in parliament to take on the whole system with the simple aim of improving his stance within the Nationalist party hierarchy.

To get at Austin Gatt, Joe Saliba, Carm Mifsud Bonnici, Richard Cachia Caruana and others Franco Debono decided that the best option was to threaten to topple government. He had had enough waiting in the sidelines for his opinions and ideas to be heard and for a place in the decision making clique that counts. So he refused to play.

The honourable aims of reforming and improving our constitutional and institutional framework, of changing our electoral laws and rules of party financing became a club to be wielded clumsily in the hands of a very angry backbencher who believed that he had been overlooked one time too many.

What next for Debono? It remains to be seen whether the nationalist party will play out their part of the deal that won them a temporary respite from the Debono tsunami. His role within the party is imperiled if he fails to obtain the right to present himself as a candidate for the next election. Technically his career should be over: “sacrificed” as he likes to put it, for the greater good. Ironically he might be a magnet for the kind of voter that liked his shit-stirring antics and who would rather vote a maverick than vote labour. That kind of voter believed Franco’s promises of reform and is the kind who would have loved Franco’s swan song in parliament.

Debono’s fate is intrinsically tied to the decisions that the party that he claims he loves will take in the near future. If the PN once again will be in the business of assembling a rag-tag group of disparate candidates then he might be in on the off-chance that his Champion of the Disgruntled image wins him a few number 1s. It will be a hard struggle though and until the next elections Debono might still have the last word in precipitating a Nationalist party decision to go to the polls.

The Age of the Generalissimo is, in all probability, almost over.