How to seriously (but seriously) wreck a political party

I don’t know about you, but a small part of me somewhere – probably not the part you’re thinking about (you dirty-minded so-and-so, etc) – is actually looking forward to reading Dr Lawrence Gonzi as yet unpublished memoirs.

Not, mind you, because I am in any way interested to know how he himself actually perceived his own slow and tortuous descent from the vaguely promising (which is roughly where he started in 2003), all the way down to his full-body immersion into the totally ridiculous (which is more or less where he is right now). Oh, no. The reason I am looking forward to his autobiography is that – as a rule – such publications tend to emerge only once their authors are themselves safely out of office: in other words, when they no longer wield any real political power, and are therefore incapable of inflicting any further harm on themselves, or their party, or (worse still, as far as the rest of us are concerned) the country as a whole.

[Note: here follows a lo-o-o-o-o-ng pause…]

Sorry about that, folks. But for some reason I was momentarily distracted by the unexpected vision of an imaginary country which successfully freed itself from its previous political obsession with all things small and petty: you know, the endless internal squabbling and the undignified bouts of public tub-thumping… the eternal name-calling, which has been going on for so long now that political parties no longer even bother insulting each other (being altogether too busy insulting their own members instead); a country which somehow managed to cure itself of its own addiction to tiny little feats of political mischief, and finally managed to crawl bodily out of the festering quagmire in which it had been putrefying for the past few decades; and even made an effort to actually get to grips with the many and various problems afflicting its own citizens… not merely for the sake of preserving some odious political status quo… but rather, for the benefit of all the people who call it home.

Ah, bliss! Small wonder I would be struck dumb for a few minutes, given the sheer, unparalleled beauty of the fleeting vision. But of course, that was all it was: a momentary hallucination, nothing more. The country we really do call home is now little more than a hostage held to ransom by its own government: a government led by people who seem to genuinely believe that their own prolonged occupation of all power nodes, bar none, is actually beneficial to everybody else.

That’s right, folks. It really is as simple as that. All the present administration’s political energy is now invested in nothing more than what the late Robin Gibb (in an irony that should really end all ironies) once described as… ‘Stayin’ Alive’.

Not sure about you, but I swear I can almost hear the backing vocals (or ‘blogs’, as they are now known) picking up the chorus where Robin left off: “Ah, ah, ah, ah… Stayin’ alive, Stayin’ alive…”

But of course, they never actually take the song to the next logical level, and explain to us WHY they are so keen on perpetuating their own survival in the first place.

To what end, I wonder, is all this frantic desperation? Certainly it cannot be because the present government feels it has a programme to implement, or anything like that. How can that be the case, when for six whole months government has not actually managed to concentrate on anything at all, except its own internal problems... still less pass legislation through a parliament which has effectively been unable to function in any coherent way since last December, if not even earlier?

But oh look, what I surprise: I’ve digressed. Allow me to regress back to the subject of Lawrence Gonzi’s unpublished memoirs. Like I said, I am rather looking forward to reading them… in fact… screw it: I think I’ll write the darn thing myself. And no, I won’t claim any royalties, either. Gonzi can have the lot as far as I’m concerned… after all he’s already liberally helped himself to everything else this country has to offer: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, as the backing vocalists promised.

Ready? Let’s start with the title: which can be appreciated in the form of a headline across the top of this page. Then let’s continue with:

Step One: Become party leader

Let’s face it: if you screw up this part, your chances of seriously (but SERIOUSLY) wrecking that political party of yours will not exactly be astronomical. But nor will they be completely non-existent, as both Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Franco Debono have managed to illustrate over the past few months alone.

Still, you do need to lead the party in order to fully ensure its total and utter annihilation. And what better way of becoming party leader… than to simply be appointed by your predecessor, for no apparent reason other than the fact that he couldn’t trust anybody else for the job?

Oh, Ok, maybe it does help to have a few ‘qualifications’ to bandy about… I don’t know… having been a glorified employee of one of Malta’s most powerful family-owned companies, perhaps… or hang on, I know: how about a CV which culminates in the words ‘President: Catholic Action”?

Either way, for maximum party-wrecking potential, it is advisable to also possess no discerning characteristics at all, other than the misplaced trust of a much-loved ‘father-figure’ (whom you can always afterwards blame for having appointed you in the first place… which is what that other party-wrecker, known by the initials KMB, once did. Remember?)

Step Two: Eliminate all your potential rivals and engender a culture of endemic mistrust

Let’s get one thing clear: it doesn’t really matter if you fail to actually make the kill. The important first step in utterly destroying a party is to instil division and ill-feeling among its rank and file… and in fact, if they manage to survive your attempts at subtle liquidation, so much the better. They will only eventually return with a vengeance and an axe to grind… and as we all know, vengeance (coupled with grindable axes) is precisely the sort of thing that causes maximum damage to both party and leader in one fell swoop.

But in case you were wondering how to unsuccessfully liquidate rivals in such a way as to ensure their dramatic return for revenge… well, there’s no tried-and-tested method we can all agree upon. Some say that it is enough to publicly hammer nails in their coffin when they are under suspicion of corruption… for instance, by simply uttering a well-timed one-liner such as “I cannot have a minister under investigation”, and then leave the media to do the rest of your dirty work for you.

Others however contend that it is best to orchestrate a fully-fledged media campaign yourself (complete with backing vocals) aimed at shredding not only the rival in question, but also all their relatives, living or dead, down seven generations at minimum.

Whichever method you choose, make sure you leave no door ajar for any possible future reconciliation. This way, when they do come back a few years later wielding that axe for all to see, you can always try to belatedly appease them by making them an offer they can’t refuse.

And to maximize the damage this will eventually cause to your own party and yourself, make damn sure you promote them to an international position of respect and authority… so that they can afterwards turn out to be a right royal pain in the arse all the way from Brussels.

Yes, indeed, now there’s a touch of party-wrecking genius if there ever was one: to appoint your own sworn enemies to positions of authority over yourself and your entire government. Why didn’t I think that up for myself…?

Step Three: create unnecessary ideological divisions, just for the heck of it

Ok, I admit this one’s a rather basic, O-level sort of party-wrecking trick… but damn it, it works every time. In fact it works especially well after you’ve also given your assurance that you would do the very opposite: so you might want to start off your entire stint as party leader by proclaiming a ‘new way of doing politics’.

Once you get that out of the way, you can immediately launch into any number of archaic, ultra-conservative campaigns that make even your predecessor (the ‘family guy’, remember?) look ‘liberal’ and ‘avant-garde’ by comparison. And when members of your own party try to draw your attention to the fact that this new direction is seriously (but SERIOUSLY) worrying certain crucial sectors of your party’s power base… you let slip the dogs of war: portraying them all as baby-killers who are hell-bent on destroying Maletse traditional family life, etc.

Step Four: piss off all the different categories of your own supporters… systematically, one by one.

Naturally there are a million ways to piss people off. I do it by writing about them… and they return the compliment by reading my articles and responding in kind. But party leaders are particularly well-positioned to piss people off. Honestly: imagine you were the newly appointed leader of a party whose supporters included the vast majority of middle class citizens, who happen to feel very strongly about the environment… perhaps not the real environment (as in, resources, ecosystems, and so on…); more like the urban environment they actually encounter in their everyday lives: the traditional architecture, the village cores, the need for open spaces, stuff like that.

Well: wouldn’t it piss them all off royally, if you were to (for instance) suddenly and inexplicably increase the country’s development zones by an area roughly equivalent to the footprint of, say… Siggiewi? And wouldn’t it just infuriate your party’s same environmentally conscious supporters beyond all reasonable measure, if you also used the same orchestrated media campaign to rubbish and ridicule their otherwise justified howls of protest?

Step Five: help yourself to absolutely everything, while telling everybody else to ‘make sacrifices’

You will probably have realized by now that it’s actually the small, inconsequential and rather silly little things that really incense people out there…and not the really big and important cock-ups at all.

For instance: you can mismanage the country’s finances all you like, and even engineer a whopping great big €6 billion budget deficit to boot… and guess what? Nobody will so much as bat an eyelid.

But just so much as think about helping yourself to an ultimately meaningless little pay-rise without actually bothering to inform anyone beforehand… and you can rest assured that Armageddon will be unleashed.

So if you want to make yourself seriously (but SERIOUSLY) unpopular, then a simple increase to your own pay packet – even if this has a negligible effect on the economy as a whole, and is in any case entirely justifiable if presented properly – should do the trick all on its own.

Just imagine, therefore, how much more of an effect it will have, if – on top of augmenting your own salary behind everybody’s back, and then trying unsuccessfully to play the whole thing down the moment you are caught red-handed– you also oversee a series of arbitrary decisions, such as the overnight removal of a subsidy on energy bills, that will eat directly into the same people’s expendable income… why, what is that, if not the equivalent of hitting the Mr Unpopular Jackpot?

At this point, all that remains to seal your doom is to openly make fun of and belittle people’s claims to be suffering economic hardships… by laughing directly in their faces, and telling them all that ‘they don’t know how lucky they are’ (while simultaneously cashing your own newly acquired 500 euro cheque for a week’s ‘work’)… 

And if, at this point, the streets are not lined with lynch mobs, all baying for your blood… well, all I can say is: you don’t know how lucky you are. Really…