Is Labour managing the tension?

Before Labour's electoral landslide victory almost three months ago, I predicted that Joseph Muscat's real test as Prime Minister would be how to manage the tension between the old Labour Party base, which was hankering after the good old Mintoff days - the days of suldati tal-azzar - and the new voters, whom he attracted with sweet promises of meritocracy, Malta taghna lkoll and a new way of doing politics.

The strain is already showing. The number of Labour supporters demanding a job with the State has not abated and is putting all the Cabinet under severe and unnecessary pressure. That is what happens when people make impossible promises during an election campaign. Slowly, slowly, the number of disappointed and disgruntled supporters will build.

That is understandable, even if hardly excusable. But other self-inflicted problems are not. The nominations of people from oldest Labour - like Ronnie Pellegrini and Gejtu Mercieca - as members of boards on public corporations or entities jar with too many people who voted for Malta taghna lkoll. It's not just that, of course. Jason Micallef's name keeps popping up persistently, overtly contradicting all that Joseph Muscat predicts about Micallef's future status. We have also had what look like a spell of old-Labour-style transfers at St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly. To say nothing of Joseph Muscat himself referring to an Opposition MP as a xewwiex ('inciter').

Obviously, such developments do not fit in Muscat's promised new vision for the future of our country. Realising that vision, we were told during the election campaign, was possible because Labour had acknowledged its past mistakes and was determined not to repeat them. The sincerity of that stance is now being questioned.

Moreover, although the stories behind some issues are not very clear, people are starting to suspect that certain 'official' decisions and actions could have been taken in defiance of Muscat's wishes. This means that people suspect that Muscat is not wholly in control.

There is no doubt, however, that the strain between the two completely unrelated groups of voters that elected Muscat to power is already showing.

Jason Micallef is the most worrisome aspect of Joseph Muscat's decisions. Muscat changed the Labour Party statute, eliminating the post of secretary-general, and, in doing so, he purportedly demolished Micallef's clout in the party. Jason was then appointed chairman of Labour's television station - One Productions - with Muscat assuring all and sundry that this meant Micallef would not stand as an election candidate. Sure enough, Micallef contested the general election as a Labour candidate - without much success, as it turned out.

Then, like a bolt from the blue, Parliamentary Secretary Jose Herrera announced that Jason Micallef was to be the new chairman of the Valletta 2018 Foundation, which was set up a good two years before the city submitted its (eventually) successful bid to be nominated European Capital of Culture for 2018. The Foundation is now entrusted to ensure the success of all that this nomination implies. According to newspaper reports, the Prime Minister's office was not aware of Herrera's decision to announce this decision, which was, in fact, criticised by many who felt Jason Micallef was unsuitable for the post.

Following this announcement, Muscat was reported as saying that when Jason Micallef officially took over the post on a full-time basis, he would have to resign his chairmanship of One Productions. A few days later, Jason Micallef confirmed that as part-time chairman of the Valletta 2018 Foundation, he would retain his full-time post as chairman of the Labour Party's television station. He also told the Times of Malta that "he had no idea when he would take up his role as V18 chairman on a full-time basis and relinquish his One TV post".

The confusion in this saga is evident, and unless Muscat comes clean about his relationship with Jason Micallef, the public perception that Micallef is out of Muscat's control will stick and harm Muscat no end.

The news of the sudden transfer of some 90 staff members at St Vincent de Paul is yet another incident that has sparked the sort of controversy that Joseph Muscat's vision seeks to avoid. The nurses' union (MUMN) has accused the government of acting unilaterally, without any consultation, and even of giving misleading information - in addition to the suspicious timing of these transfers to coincide with the union president's absence for a conference organised by the International Council of Nurses in Australia.

The suspicion that this is a repeat of the old Labour way of ordering transfers from 'high above' in order to favour party supporters is too evident. More intriguing is the question of who gave the go-ahead for these transfers. Was it Minister Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, Parliamentary Secretary Franco Mercieca or someone lower in the pecking order? Is this yet another case of confusion worse confounded?

Once again the perception is that old-Labour methods keep surfacing through what is obviously a very thin Malta taghna lkoll veneer. Muscat should realise that this is a most worrying trend.

In the United States it is customary to use the first 100 days of a first-term presidency as a yardstick to assess the future successes and accomplishments of the whole presidency. Muscat's first 100 days in power will soon be over, and many would probably conclude that, considering all the oomph of his electoral campaign, they proved to be fraught with missteps and effectively more of a damp squib than anything else.

Gozitans just do it

If my memory serves me right, the bars on the vessels of Gozo Channel used to be contracted out to a private operator. The company would get its guaranteed remuneration, and the entrepreneur would make his profits - or losses, as the case may be.

Then someone got the bright idea that these bars should be run by the company itself - and it was pretty obvious that this would necessitate an increasing the number of people employed with Gozo Channel. Why people would be so keen to be employed with the State or a state-owned entity is pretty obvious as well!

The people running those bars were in the news recently. It seems that they helped themselves with a 'tip' or two from the tills.

That's what happens when democratic Christians become socialists for convenience's sake!

As Enrico Mizzi is said to have had the habit of saying, when a politician does an unmerited favour to a voter, he creates uno ingrato e cento nemici - someone ungrateful and a hundred enemies.