Eddie: my assessment

Living to the venerable age of 80 is in some ways quite a feat. I am certainly not the ideal person to celebrate Eddie Fenech Adami's life as a politician.

But in more ways than one - and like so many Maltese people - I was a bystander to the days of Fenech Adami. What follows is a personal appraisal of the man as I knew him.

Fenech Adami lives in the parish of St Helen's in B'Kara. I spent most of my childhood in that neighbourhood, at my grandmother's house which is not far from the Fenech Adami house. I attended the same private primary school and shared a school bus with his sons and his sister, who was also my teacher.

The Fenech Adamis were respectable folk and were respected by everyone.  Humble Mary, his late wife, more than anyone else.

When his home and his family were attacked by Labourite thugs, the man who was dubbed and scorned as 'the village lawyer' by that cruel and vitriolic blogger, he rose like a phoenix to the Mintoff of those days.

That was the turning point.

In 1987, the election of Fenech Adami was a breath of fresh air. His conservative streak and link to the Catholic Church was irrelevant to me at the time, since the corruption and violence of the 80s had reached a limit that was humanely impossible to accept.

But his reconciliatory mood left many people irked and irritated.

I, for one, was very angry that he did not take the perpetrators of so many violent acts to the cleaners.

This spirit of disenchantment was crucial to me as I gave birth - together with others - to Alternattiva Demokratika, which served as a home - believe it or not - for many die-hard Nationalists who yearned for some kind of retribution at the time.

As Fenech Adami opened up to those he had criticised and attacked when in Opposition, my cynicism of the PN increased. I recall his rapprochement with Albert Mizzi, the business entrepreneur he had personally rebuked in a PN mass meeting. Or his tolerance and promotion of former police officers involved in human rights abuses.

I also recall the 'secretive' meeting with him in the middle of the night.

The one where we met in the early hours of the morning in a house near the Buskett valley. He was driven there by his son Beppe Fenech Adami in a run-down, toffee-coloured Morris Marina, and he sat down with Wenzu Mintoff and Toni Abela.

Despite the damning material and information passed on to him about Lorry Sant and other Labour cronies, Fenech Adami was not too eager to take action.

Yet it was in Alternattiva Demokratika that I realised that Fenech Adami was ruthless, even though at one point he did consider accepting electoral reform.

He gave birth to the Galdes and Gonzi commissions on political financing and electoral reform.

And he even asked Austin Gatt to start discussions with the Greens on electoral reform.

But he suddenly reneged on the whole reform process and went on to lose the 1996 election. He would not bow down to his political adversaries and look the other way, as their life was made more difficult. A case in point was when the radio licence for a radio station was only issued to AD a week before the elections in 1996.

Even so, there was so much admiration at the time at his insistence to open up to electoral reform (which would have signalled the entry of third-party politics in Malta) that the whole Alternattiva Demokratika executive posed for a photograph with Fenech Adami at Wenzu Mintoff's wedding.

In the interim years before that photo session, the tension within the Nationalist administration had started to surface.

Our news stories in the newspaper Alternattiva about Minister Louis Galea, his part-time farmer status and the Auxiliary Workers' Scheme scandal did not endear us to many Nationalists. But Fenech Adami did take note of Louis Galea's sins and acted on them, in his own sinister way.

Yet, he refused to dump him and he refused to throw away many of his errant ministers.

He stood by his Commissioner of Police George Grech - the commissioner he had personally appointed - despite the damning evidence published by MaltaToday, which compromised Grech's position.

That was a special feature of his style of administration. That is his doggedness at refusing to throw away his cabinet ministers or his close associates, even when they erred.

He also refused to take note of the 'lack of meritocracy' that dominated his administration and the revolving doors of the same old party pals who would run the government agencies and boards. From ambassadors to envoys, none of the appointees were selected unless they had a umbilical connection with the Nationalist Party.

He allowed his erstwhile shadow Richard Cachia Caruana to impose arrogant style of administration and to run his ministers as if they were boy scouts.  And even when he was told about RCC's style of working and spin he would stand by him irrespective of the seriousness of the accusations.

Nonetheless, Cachia Caruana was an asset to Fenech Adami who needed a strong arm at the time. He even refused to see into his wrong judgement on the Zeppi l-Hafi pardon and the implications of RCC's obsession with Meinrad Calleja.

When Prime Minister, I remember him best in his quest to leave no stone unturned to ensure that Malta did become a member of the European Union.

That led me to get closer to him because of my role as a consultant to Cachia Caruana in the Birds and Habitat's directive and a member of IVA Malta fl-Ewropa. I was more than thrilled to be invited to attend the PN executive council to explain the bird's directive, and to watch Fenech Adami absorb all I was saying.

I would also be privileged enough to be chosen to express the last words before his own televised commentary under a tent at Luxol in March 2003 before the EU referendum. My appeal was for non-Nationalists to vote for Europe.

Fenech Adami's yearning for the Presidency was to lose him a great deal of sympathy, as was his open support for Lawrence Gonzi in the leadership battle and his demand that he become President - a decision which angered and saddened many of his admirers and diminished his standing.

Eddie's contribution to the economic well-being of Malta were not hampered by his deep religious and conservative views. He encouraged economic growth and welcomed pluralism. In the end economic growth would ironically prove to be the best tool in promulgating the liberal society he so objected to. He brought a sense of normality - and modernity - into the country which lifted us from the mediocrity of Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.

Yet on the other hand, he did not trim nepotism, the networks and the tribal political structure. He also failed to take stock of changes in Maltese society and refused to open up to a more liberal Maltese reality.

Neither did he nip corruption in the bud, and he allowed for commissions with no teeth. Yet in politics he was magnanimous and allowed his internal opponents to find place in his political family (with the sole exception of Josie Muscat). His overwhelming character and saviour-like reputation remained a good enough reason NOT to stand up to him.

In this regard, Lawrence Gonzi was a complete failure. Gonzi, unlike Fenech Adami, harboured a deep-rooted dislike of his opponents.

There are two events which will never fade from my memory.

One is of a man I would meet every Sunday, alone, at the Balzan Church for the late afternoon mass. I was studying for O-Levels at the time and still a churchgoer; he was rebuilding his party against the messiness - and the enormity - of Mintoff.

And the other image is of when, as Prime Minister, he invited me to a state dinner with Vaclav Havel, a hero in his own right.

He crossed the floor of the ambassador's room with Havel, smiled and introduced me as a 'journalist' who "keeps us on our toes".

My final assessment of Eddie Fenech Adami is more than good. He was perhaps, more than ripe for the country at the time and the best we could ever been served with as prime minister.

That was then, not now.