An open letter to the Prime Minister | ‘The buck stops here’

Dear Prime Minister,

Your office has informed public servants that they have either to relinquish their personal leave or take 15 days of unpaid leave to contest local elections.

This means that candidates employed in the public service have to pay a price in order to be in a position to contribute for their locality.

Instead of encouraging citizens to contribute for their local government, your office has created a hurdle on democratic participation.

As you must know, local council candidates also pay mortgages, have family commitments and already sacrifice their free time to contest these elections.

I cannot fathom the argument that the participation of these people in local elections impinges in any way on the way they conduct their jobs.

Surely anyone canvassing during working hours should face disciplinary procedures. But when such canvassing is done after working hours it has no impact whatever on the work done during the day. Since when has public service and democratic participation been considered to be detrimental to public service?

In fact the OPM directive shows how low your office values democratic political participation.

May I remind you that your government has not had any qualms on awarding public officials high salaries. You had no qualms in giving a pay rise to yourself and your ministers. Despite my reservations on the timing and the secretive way these increases were enacted, I always understood the point that public service should be valued even in a monetary sense.

But in this case you are expecting people aspiring for political office at local level to do the very opposite, by expecting them to relinquish half a month's pay or most of their leave to be eligible for office.

Such a measure is also discriminatory against the least well off who simply cannot afford to deny their families of either time or income.

By making it difficult for civil servants to contest elections, this directive further skews democracy against salaried workers. For while in the private sector many already lack political freedoms, workers in the public sector are now being penalised for contesting.

It also weighs heavily on third party candidates who already face the hurdle of having all the odds against them. Some of these contest with little chance of being actually elected but in so doing contribute to ensure real pluralism.  Expecting them to pay for this adds insult to injury.

I understand that this decision was taken a year ago. Labour and AD could have been more vigilant on the circulars issued by your office. But the fact is this news escaped everyone's radar and it was only yesterday that many prospective candidates learned that they had to fortfeit their leave or half a month's salary yesterday.

If you approved this decision, you have seriously dented your democratic credentials at a time when your government is on life support. 

If you were unaware of what the bureaucrats in your office are doing (as you were apparently unaware when your office asked AD and AN officials working in the civil service to reseign from their political posts) and truly value democratic participation, you should intervene and stop this nonsense.

As you always say when you defend one of your minions, the buck stops with you.

Sincerely,

James Debono