[ANALYSIS] Rollercoaster ride to irrelevance: the Farrugias and the PD

Marlene Farrugia does leave a legacy. As a foremost internal critic of Labour’s environmental policies, the one-time Labour MP revolutionised the way parliament’s environmental committee works, which she ably chaired. She opened up its meetings to NGOs and asked the pertinent questions during hearings on controversial developments like Zonqor, a site formerly earmarked to host the main campus of the fledgling American University of Malta. Back then Farrugia was testimony to the power of internal dissent and one is still tempted to ask: what if Farrugia had stayed on, carefully choosing her battles within the Labour party to win some of those battles? 

Yet, after leaving Labour she drifted, taking with her a more reluctant husband, none other than the former health minister and Labour whip Godfrey Farrugia, on a rollercoaster ride across uncharted territory. This was testimony both to her courage and recklessness in first founding a new centrist party with no clear identity, and then forging a coalition with Simon Busuttil’s Nationalist Party… a deal which secured the re-election of the Farrugia couple to parliament.

Yet after this historic breakthrough, the couple’s fortunes nose-dived.

For a time, Marlene Farrugia even floated the idea, typical of her impolitic manner, of contesting for PN leader right after being elected an MP in the Forza Nazzjonali coalition. She then went on to obstruct new PN leader Adrian Delia’s path to parliament, who needed the withdrawal of PD candidates from by-elections to allow his co-option, eroding the trust she enjoyed among a large segment of PN voters.

In the meantime, her partner Godfrey had assumed leadership of the new party. But despite his reputation for integrity and principled approach, he failed in his first electoral test when contesting as an MEP candidate, being even outshone by the Swedish clean-up campaigner Camilla Appelgren – a liberal addition to the PD who instantly shook up the Farrugias’ meek position on abortion rights.

With the chances of re-election in the next election looking dimmer than ever, the couple have now decided to jump ship, on the premise that in so doing they would clear the way for a new generation of leaders free from the baggage which ultimately weighed on the new party. But why did the new party fail to take off despite the high expectations raised by the election of two MPs in parliament?

Cartoon by Mikiel Galea

Running before it could walk

The party forged a coalition pact with the PN months after being founded, lacking sufficient roots to be treated as an equal, to the extent that its candidates had to contest on the PN banner. Carried away by the justified moral outrage on the Panama Papers scandal, the party projected itself more as a radical Opposition to the dominant Labour Party than as an alternative to both parties. Sure enough, the party had exploited the only realistic path for a third party to get elected in parliament but this inevitably shaped its identity. In this way the party relied on the support and goodwill of a segment of angry PN voters, and failed to make substantial inroads among other sectors like floaters who were reluctant on giving the PN another chance after just four years in Opposition.

The strategy proved successful in the short-term goal of ensuring the re-election of the Farrugia couple, but was neutralised by the fact that Labour was re-elected with the same majority and Simon Busuttil resigning from PN leader.

After her fallout with Labour following the controversial MEPA demerger, Marlene Farrugia’s PD came into formation during the Panama Papers scandal, which galvanised the Nationalist Opposition and brought the two parties closer together, until they announced a formal coalition, Forza Nazzjonali, in 2017

The party owed its MPs to the PN

The election of two PD MPs on the PN list proved a bitter pill for the defeated PN to swallow.

While it may well be the case that in the absence of the coalition the PN would have fared even worse, the coalition did give an option to voters who could not bring themselves to vote for established PN candidates. But the end result showed that the PD did not bring enough added value to the coalition to narrow the gap.

The perception among PN die-hards was that the PD had taken a free ride off the PN, taking more than giving back in the process. Moreover, the coalition with the PN irremediably blocked Labour-leaning voters from ever warming up to the new party.

Shaped in Marlene’s image

Marlene Farrugia’s mercurial and exuberant character overshadowed the party since its foundation.

She displayed the zeal of a convert going an extra mile to distance herself from Labour, endorsing the Egrant allegations and going out of her way to denounce Labour’s corruption. The decision of her partner Godfrey Farrugia, who right till the end of the legislature in 2017 served as Labour whip, to join the Forza Nazzjonali bandwagon was abrupt and easily spun by Labour as his submission to an assertive partner, albeit unfairly.

Ready to run: Marlene Farrugia takes the PD candidates to the electoral office to register as candidates on the PN list. Under the 2017 ‘Forza Nazzjonali’ deal, the PD candidates would be nicknamed ‘tal-Orangjo’ on the ballot sheet but still be considered as PN candidates

The optics of the Farrugia couple did not help Godfrey either: in various newsreels, the gallant Godfrey is seen kowtowing to the confident Marlene, providing much grist for the Labour mill when Marlene is seen ordering Godfrey away from a journalist because the couple are late for the parliamentary sitting, asking him to switch off the oven during a press conference at the couple’s Zebbug house, or ordering him to “stay strong” as he broke down in tears as he is welcomed to the PN headquarters when he resigned from Labour.

Marlene Farrugia’s own dazzling career – starting off from the PN, then becoming a Labour MP, and then ‘returning’ to the PN in the form of a coalition, provided fodder to Joseph Muscat’s ‘coalition of confusion’ narrative. Even Simon Busuttil could not control Marlene in press conferences. Once the election was over Farrugia could not resist the temptation of interfering in the PN’s internal affairs, initially hinting at an interest in the leadership and then asking her candidates to stand in casual elections triggered by Jean Pierre Debono’s resignation intended to allow Delia to take a seat as leader of the Opposition.

Subsequently Farrugia took a back seat with the more moderate Godfrey Farrugia eventually taking the party’s leadership. But by then, the party had already been forged in his partner’s mercurial image.

Sobs all round as the freshly resigned Labour whip Godfrey Farrugia enters the PN headquarters, greeted by his counterpart David Agius, right before the 2017 elections

Lacking an identity

Marlene Farrugia’s opposition to the morning-after pill and Godfrey Farrugia’s staunch pro-life stance alienated liberals from the party. Ironically on the eve of MEP elections one of the party’s candidates, Cami Appelgren, found herself on the other end of the stick allegedly being threatened by pro-lifers for her liberal stance. The PD issued a confusing statement intended to mark the party’s pro-life stance but clearly motivated by Appelgren’s liberal stance.

The party also failed to leave a mark on social policy while it competed with AD and independent candidate Arnold Cassola in securing the green vote in an overcrowded third party field. The only silver lining for the party was the relatively successful performance of its Swedish-born candidate who projected a more pro-active and liberal image. But by upstaging the PD’s own leader, Appelgren exposed the limited appeal of the Farrugia couple in the new scenario.

Ultimately third parties acting on their own steam depend on projecting a clear image with which minorities can identify. In coalition with the PN, the PD could afford to be a bland, catch-all party. But all alone the party had to secure loyalty of a dedicated cohort of voters.

No appeal for Labour voters

Despite Muscat’s drift to neoliberalism, the PD failed to project itself as a left-leaning party which could attract Labour voters. While the anti-Labour strategy worked when in coalition with the PN, it fumbled when the party faced the prospect of facing the two behemoths.
Instead of taking votes from disgruntled Labour voters, the PD found itself competing in a crowded field for the shrinking PN vote. In MEP elections where voters do not even have to choose the country’s government, the party failed to come any close to electing an MEP, retaining the same vote count it garnered in the 2017 election.

The Daphne crowd preferred Casa and Metsola

The brutal assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia galvanised a protest movement, which stands as a reference point for PN activists alienated by present leader Adrian Delia. As the standard bearers of the Forza Nazzjonali legacy, the PD tried to present itself as the natural alternative for these voters. Yet in MEP elections these voters were more likely to support the re-election of David Casa and Roberta Metsola than shifting their allegiance to a new party.

Moreover, its association with Caruana Galizia’s own divisive legacy may well have further alienated support from Labour.