After Panamagate: Presidentialism has failed us

Raphael Vassallo makes a scathing exposé of the current state of Maltese politics dominated by rival personality cults.

He asks the most pertinent of questions: “If a party allows itself to become an extension of its leader’s personality… and its leader’s personality happens to be inimitable and unrepeatable… what choice is there, but for the party to lose all sense of identity the moment that leader steps down?”

I would dare say that the ramifications of Panamagate have accelerated this crisis. While everyone expected Labour to face this question in seven years’ time at the end of Muscat’s second legislature, it is facing the question right now.

For while as things (and judging by the latest polls) the PL still has a greater chance of winning the next election – especially if it manages to win back disgruntled Labour voters intent on not voting – Panamagate has not only given a new lease of life to the PN, but it ushered in a crisis of identity in the PL. The fact that the crisis is not talked about internally simply aggravates matters. This crisis has not even been discussed, let alone tackled in the party which just a few weeks ago elected Konrad Mizzi – the man at the centre of the scandal – as its deputy leader, fully knowing that he had set up an offshore company in Panama.

This raises the question on whether presidentialism has failed us. What is missing here are real parties where currents of thought and their representatives openly clash to push their ideas in the common platform and where in elections people vote for binding policies rather than blind trust in the leader. After all Malta is still a parliamentary democracy and the PM is not a President but a first among equals in the cabinet of Ministers.

Unfortunately presidentialism is fostered by soundbite culture and polling (for which as a pollster I share part of blame – but if trust is such a factor it has to be measured).

Surely as Raphael Vassallo well observed, presidentialism is a deeply rooted historical phenomenon which harks back to the great patriarchs of Maltese politics: Dom Mintoff and Eddie Fenech Adami.

But what we have assisted to in the past decade has been an accelerated erosion of the political party as an intermediary between the leaders (who have their unelected kitchen cabinet) and the voter.

In a contradictory process, while Muscat and to a lesser extent Busuttil (who still has to contend with internal factions and a more mobile and less disciplined segment of the PN electorate) have dispensed with the party as counterweight to their power, they are constantly cut down to size by a greater media scrutiny which simply did not exist in Mintoff’s time and had only started to make subdued ripples under Fenech Adami.

This results in an absurd situation of having leaders who are constantly inflated by the party machines and deflated by scrutiny.

What we have in the end are sad caricatures of the super-human beings depicted on pre-election billboards.

But the system still survives because of a strong core vote and the growth of a segment of the electorate which is lazy, apathetic and relies on soundbites in the social media, which are craftily engineered by party elves. This has turned our political parties into movements of cheerleaders united by blind trust in the leader.

What I find striking in Panamagate is the paralysis of the Labour party and the absence of a vocal wing calling for the resignations of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. Any party with some self-respect would have had prominent officials openly questioning the behaviour of a government minister and the PM’s most trusted aide, and asking them to go out of respect for the party.

Except for a few cryptic Facebook messages expressing unease, Labour reacted by trying to throw back the tables on the PN, in a way which has further alienated discerning voters but which may have kept the troops in line. Moreover while Labour has a lot to be proud about, having introduced progressive legislation like civil unions, it has blurred the lines between business and politics, many times giving the impression that the government is there just to facilitate business.

The fact that a minister and the PM’s closest aide have failed to realise that they are servants of the republic and not common mortals with Panama companies, is a reflection of this creeping mentality reminiscent of the downfall of the highly aspirational Italian Socialist Party in the 1990s.

The paralysis within the Labour party is reminiscent of the absence of a vocal liberal PN wing in the divorce referendum. The PN’s crisis harks back to its failure to realise that the writing was on the wall in 2008 when it only won by the slimmest of majorities.

Instead of realising what had happened, GonziPN simply proceeded by alienating the liberals (while making some important concessions on environmental issues which failed to exorcise memories of the 2006 extension of building boundaries). In my opinion the party’s leadership is still reluctant to accept that the PN can only win as a coalition which includes social democrats, greens and liberals.

The sense of entitlement felt by conservatives who feel that the country owes them a divine right to rule the country is the party’s greatest obstacle to rehabilitation. Panamagate will be the PN’s undoing if it generates hopes of a short cut back to power. Neither can the PN preach good governance while skirting around party financing rules, by launching a loan scheme in the absence of a clear commitment to publish the names of lenders.

Surely having a stronger third party which builds on AD’s legacy, which includes being the first proponents of most of the progressive laws (ranging from divorce and gay marriage to party financing laws) enacted in the past two decades, will greatly help in the democratisation of Malta, especially if this formation learns how to position itself in the current electoral system which will not change in the foreseeable future.

Simply put, third parties can only get elected either by using the single transferable vote system (which results in eight parties being elected in the Irish Republic) or through a pre-electoral alliance with one of the big parties in a common list based on binding commitments enacted in a common platform.

The second pragmatic option comes with the risk of being associated with the baggage of either one of the two main parties, but it tallies with the reality of the constitutional amendments securing a parliamentary majority for the party with a relative majority of first count votes while opening the floodgates of second preferences from the coalition partner.

But third parties will contribute nothing to democracy if they re-propose a mini version of the personality cult in which the leader is surrounded by a hotchpotch of personalities with no ideological bond except anger. Moreover ultimately it is the educated, mobile and independent minded segment of the electorate which is most likely to opt for a third voice and these won’t be swayed by theatrics but by a rational and cohesive programme which can be binding on a future government.