Our political metastasis

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s decision not to hold a press conference on Saturday was a clear sign that his Cabinet reshuffle was catalysed by the former health minister’s premature resignation.

Muscat was mentally and physically drained after a long day. But so were we in the press, so he has no excuse for not calling a press conference. And as it turned out, his reshuffle was indeed no reshuffle at all.

Many observers will argue that with his nine-seat majority, Muscat is spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing his ministers. But I really have to disagree: I think that he has a serious problem when it comes to finding competent people to offer some vision to ministries and implement this government’s programme.

Not only that. He may have a team of prima donnas who are ready to become ministers, but he has neither politicians nor managers ready to serve the public. Just like his predecessor Lawrence Gonzi, he is surrounded by a similar posse of egocentrics with little or no grey matter (Gonzi complained of his “limited talent pool” when it came to choosing ministers). Gone are the days of the party ideologues.

After one year, Muscat’s reshuffle leaves much to be desired, with his top minister, Konrad Mizzi, now taking on the biggest challenge of all – energy and health – in a strange combination that proves how limited he might be in choice.

After one year, Muscat’s reshuffle leaves much to be desired, with his top minister, Konrad Mizzi, now taking on the biggest challenge of all – energy and health – in a strange combination that proves how limited he might be in choice.

He has roped in paediatrician Chris Fearne as parliamentary secretary for health, who carries the stigma of the allegations made against him when a child in his care passed away prematurely. The judicial process regarding the negligence which led to the death of a boy, was blocked due to the intervention of then Attorney General Anthony Borg Barthet. It was a godless decision, one that Borg Barthet may have to answer for to his god – indeed, he said “as God as my witness” when he was questioned on the matter and why he had invoked nolle prosequi to stop the judicial process from going forward.

I have a feeling that people do not really care if Chris Fearne made an awful mistake – if they did they would not have elected him. The Prime Minister thinks that the past is past. But my refusal to forget is the reason I am a journalist, and not a politician.

What worries me the most is that Chris Fearne is just another doctor turned politician, with no real vision for our health services. I don’t believe I will be proven wrong. Spending four days in Paris and looking at President Francois Hollande’s sad reshuffle, I can see many resemblances with Muscat’s approach to politics, but for one major difference… Muscat does not don a helmet to run off to a mistress.

All I can tell you is that beyond the irrefutable fact that Alfred Sant is the intellectual that he is, his legacy as a man unfit to run this country will live on.

But then again, Hollande’s ministers are well-nurtured and rooted political animals, politicians who have grown in the French Socialist Party and the left-wing intellectual milieu. They are also mostly deep-rooted in the big social and environmental debate that has always dominated the French left. A bit romantic, but so much better than being in the company of activists like Sandro Chetcuti or Marco Gaffarena.

In Muscat’s case, most of the majority of the new appointments have little or no link to Labour in politics, let alone in the Labour Party. Chris Fearne was never active in politics and I always remember him being completely detached from social and political issues. His interest in politics, as Freud would put it, would have a lot to do with his massive ego.

Konrad Mizzi could have stood out as any level-headed Nationalist and apart from his father’s ties with some well-known Labour-leaning entrepreneurs, was never remotely connected with Labour.

Those that have been promoted recently do not necessarily hail from a better crop. On the contrary, some of them are not even fit for purpose. Michael Falzon for example, who served as deputy leader to the Labour party before 2008, represented the face of Labour under Alfred Sant and was increasingly labelled as very conservative with little or no substance. His appointment has also signalled another shift away from the environment on government’s agenda.

And here again, I cannot understand Muscat. If he really wanted to send a positive message to the environmental lobby he should not have appointed Falzon, a hunter, a fireworks enthusiast, and someone with very little empathy for the green lobby.

But as Muscat plods on, his top European Parliament candidate Alfred Sant makes a fool of himself by reaffirming his views against the system of referenda. He said this week, “I never was in favour of a political system that functions on the back of referenda (perhaps with the exception of Switzerland, where they have long been institutionalised and are therefore probably run with fairness). But in most parliamentary democracies one finds that referenda are used mainly as a tool by which to manipulate public opinion.”

Now, I neither have the eloquence nor the innate ability to shoot myself in the foot like Alfred Sant. But Sant is a bloody fool and a stubborn man for that. He lost so many elections and referenda that he really should have just locked himself up in his library. Instead he offers himself to the electorate as a candidate at a time when he knows he will scoop up all the votes of disgruntled Labourites.

All I can tell you is that beyond the irrefutable fact that Alfred Sant is the intellectual that he is, his legacy as a man unfit to run this country will live on. Now he rides the wave of dissatisfaction inside Labour, roping in the hard-core and eurosceptics. He will be elected to the EP and share some of his wisdom in the European Parliament, but will fail to outshine any of his colleagues.

When he addresses Labour supporters he goes out of his way to embrace Joseph Muscat, but he knows that every time Muscat’s ratings fall with Labourites, support for him increases. What he cannot stand is the way Muscat reached out to those Nationalists whom Sant politically bludgeoned, like Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Jesmond Mugliett.

Sant cannot really complain. As prime minister he refused to change so many Nationalists in sensitive positions, including the Commissioner of Police, George Grech. Muscat is only thankful that his counterpart, Simon Busuttil, is not making any waves in the polls. If he were, he would have to start worrying.

The front-page stories in MaltaToday’s issue yesterday illustrate the extent of the political metastasis that has engulfed Maltese politics. The first one depicts how close the political class is to questionable characters such as the Gaffarenas.

The other story illustrates the way MEPA’s legal department, with full-time employees such as its head of legal services, were side-lined to give way to the Abela family, earning them a handsome income of hundreds of thousands as a result of non-stop direct orders. 

It’s a special arrangement that was left unchanged by the Muscat administration, despite the fact that the whole set-up was criticised when Muscat was in opposition.

I am afraid that was yesterday, not today.