Let there be Labour and PN…

Like John “Hannibal” Smith, I always love it when a “plan comes together”. In this case, however, it is more than just a “plan”. At a time when Malta’s two omniscient, omnipotent and (naturally) benevolent parties are constantly at each other’s throats about absolutely everything under the sun – all the way down to “who’s got the bigger swimming pool, nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!” – they suddenly take time out of their busy, mud-slinging schedule to converge on one single, solitary issue.

And what would that be, I wonder? Hmm… well, seeing as they’ve both made a hash of things in their own time, you could almost suggest ‘rotten governance’. They converge on that all the time… even if they only ever seem to notice when the other party is in charge. 

But no, don’t be silly. If the two parties are going to call a temporary ceasefire long enough to actually agree on something for a change… you can rest assured it’s going to be something akin to a common threat. History teaches us that sort of thing. The USA and Russia were allies in WWII, for as long as Hitler remained a mutual concern. Alternattiva and the PN signed a (very brief) peace accord before the 2004 EU referendum, when their shared goal of EU accession was imperilled. Even Vodafone and Telemalta joined forces once, at a time when a competitor was trying to muscle into the telecommunications market. (The result on that occasion was ‘GO’, which strikes me as deeply meaningful: it’s just the way things ‘go’…)

So make no mistake: the two parties are responding to what they evidently perceive to be a credible threat to their absolute stranglehold on power at all costs. And it sort of amuses me that the threat happens to take the form of Marlene Farrugia: someone who (like old blind Tiresiais, long ago) has ‘crossed between the poles’. By turns a Nationalist and a Labour MP, she knows the labyrinthine ins and outs of both parties simultaneously. And the beauty of it all is that… she’s already in parliament, representing neither.

But that’s an irony I’ll come to later. For the moment, let’s stick with the amazing coincidence that both the PN and Labour responded to the threat of a new political party in exactly the same way. It’s not a threat to themselves, naturally. It’s a threat to ‘Malta’s political and economic stability’. That is to say… it is a threat to you, me, and both our dogs. (Even if my dog doesn’t look like he’s feeling very threatened at the moment. But that’s probably because he’s been dead for years.) 

That’s the thing about our two political parties, though. They’re always so thoughtful about the safety and welfare of others…

Never mind the danger to themselves; that is secondary, when Planet Earth’s fate hangs in the balance. In any case, I’m very thankful that they’ve warned me about this impending danger of sudden, irreversible Apocalypse. I freely confess I was entirely blind to its existence, until things were so very patiently explained to me this week.

You see, I was under the impression that Malta’s two-party system was itself unstable. In fact, it still looks to me like it is teetering on the brink of total collapse. Both parties are broadly indebted to the same category of business interests, which makes any real divergence impossible. Neither has lived up to its own promises of (to quote the most memorable slogan) a ‘new way of doing politics’. 

Nor has the much-vaunted system really achieved the levels of conventional ‘stability’ it seems to think it has. Listening to them talk, you’d think Maltese governments were immutably embedded into a geological layer of pure Titanium: unmoveable and unshakable by any form of turbulence. We all seem to overlook the tiny detail that two governments (one Nationalist, one Labour) have lost their Parliamentary majorities in the space of a decade… a decade in which there was never more than two parties represented in the House at one time. 

In fact, I used to think it was laughable that our system is considered ‘stable and secure’, when it produced an Alfred Sant administration that lasted no longer than 22 months… and a Gonzi one that somehow clung on by the follicle of a hair for three whole years, without actually enjoying a parliamentary majority.

Even at times when political stability wasn’t an issue, the very force of the government’s grip on power was at times frightening. Mintoff’s was an extremely stable government, even when leading by a single seat in parliament. Was the rest of the country ‘stable’? I seemed to remember moments when it was rocked (albeit fleetingly) by gunfire and tear gas…

Throughout Eddie’s time (and all the way to the present), successive ‘stable’ governments have legislated in ways that always seem to maximise their own power at the expense of opposition and civil society alike. Even the third party issue itself is a case in point… no stone was left unturned to close down the gap to the narrowest of chinks; and if that were not enough, they now warn us of the dire consequences should someone still manage to somehow squeeze through.

I mean, honestly. Who do they think they’re kidding?

But of course, all that was just me in my earlier, deluded phase. Now that I have seen the light, I fully understand that the precarious balance of the entire Universe really does hinge exclusively on the question of whether two or more parties occupy Malta’s House of Representatives. I can even visualise it, too. Like a see-saw. So long as two equally bloated and obese entities are seated at either extremity, the equilibrium is maintained (though the seat may groan under their weight).

But if one, measly little emaciated homunculus so much as hangs from the tip of one side by the extremity of just one finger… Snap! It would be Mr Creosote’s last After Eight in Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life”. Only more than just ‘the world’s fattest man’ would explode at a dinner table. The order of the known Cosmos would just as instantly dissolve into chaos, and we’d all be doomed.

Doomed. The very word is like a knell which reminds me of something vaguely pertinent… ah, yes. The one thing I find truly fascinating about the two parties’ sudden convergence to fight a common threat, is what it tells us about their own self-perception. Consider how often they resort to religious imagery, for instance: calling each other ‘Judas’ instead of ‘traitor’, or appealing to “all those of good will’…

There is a Messianic complex deeply embedded in both Labour and the PN. They both clearly think of themselves less as ‘political parties’, than as complete belief systems in their own right: offering a self-contained philosophy of life to which any additions (such as legal or ethical inconveniences) are evidently superfluous. 

In a sense, they are like just little political variations of Sharia law: the good of the party/religion comes first; all else follows.

Like religions, they demand complete and utter fidelity from their ‘followers’… whom they naturally believe – not incorrectly, in many cases – to have been ‘created in their own image and likeness’. They are also rooted in the same unswerving conviction that they are always right in all things (and therefore, conversely, that their critics are always wrong); and of course, that only they – and no one else – can conceivably offer a direct path to Economic and Political Salvation.

This is the point where you’re all supposed to genuflect, by the way.

And just like the most inflexible, dogmatic religions known to man – the Young Earth Creationists, or Flat-Earthers – they also seem to be spectacularly immune to the effects of physical proof. It doesn’t matter how many cases of political instability or economic mismanagement you rub their noses in. They really do – firmly and genuinely – believe all the above nonsense, despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary. 

Of course it works the other way round. Remember that irony I spoke about earlier? Neither party seems to have even realised that there are already more than two parties in parliament as we speak…. and this has been the case for well over a year now. 

By my count, there are in fact four: Labour, PN, Giovanna Debono and Marlene Farrugia. The latter two occupy only one seat apiece… but that’s the most any new party contesting its first election would realistically aspire to anyway. 

So… where’s the resulting instability, folks? If multiple party representation was meant to spell an end to governments surviving their entire term… why isn’t the present one collapsing?

But, damn it, I keep forgetting that – like The Monkees before me – I’m now a believer. Who cares about the evidence? Blessed are ye who believe without seeing, and all that…

So please rise for the first reading.

“Let there be Light,” said the Lord; and there was Light.

“Let there be Labour and PN,” said the Lord, and… well, that’s it, really. “No need for anything else. Amen.”