Running a country from an airconditioned boat

On Sunday, during a phone-in interview on his party’s radio station, Robert Abela could not contain his partisan instinct when speaking about the power cuts. 

While boasting about the investment done by his government in the electricity grid, he had to hit out at the Nationalist Party over its half-baked proposal last year to liberalise the distribution network. 

There will be time to critically review the PN’s proposals but Sunday’s tirade was Abela’s way of trying to deflect from the criticism his government is receiving from every corner of the country over the repeated power outages. 

But as the June election has shown, people are no longer giving the government and the Labour Party the benefit of the doubt or willing to close one eye when things go bad. The Labour government has lost the people’s good will. 

Abela’s decision to package criticism for the Opposition – at least it was not civil servants this time – in his comments about an ongoing crisis, simply shows how out of touch he is with reality. 

That the phone-in interview was conducted from his airconditioned boat while berthed in Ragusa is symbolic of how a country that is seething with anger over power outages has been abandoned by its leaders. 

Excuse the pettiness but this editorial is being written on a battery-powered laptop because of the umpteenth power cut in San Gwann that is not even flagged on Enemalta’s online outage map. 

At the very least, Robert Abela and his energy minister, Miriam Dalli, must admit that over the past 10 years, successive Labour administrations have failed to invest adequately in the distribution network despite presiding over record GDP growth and a population explosion. 

But somehow, they cannot find it in their heart of hearts to admit this failing. It is no wonder then that Enemalta’s bosses were arrogant enough to describe the National Audit Office’s critical review of last year’s power outages as “an opinion”. 

Of course, the prolonged heatwaves are having their toll but the situation is only made worse by having a distribution network that is weak. 

The government and Enemalta have tried to make up for the decades-long failure to invest properly in the high voltage network by pouring €50 million in upgrades to the electricity grid over the past 12 months. Abela has promised a continuation of this investment. 

It so happens that these pledges are being made to a cynical audience that has grown impatient and is seeing its quality of life deteriorate because of somebody else’s incompetence. 

Running a country from an airconditioned boat is definitely not the way things should be. Abela is entitled to his holiday but if he decides to absent himself from the country, decency, if not the Constitution, dictates he should appoint an acting prime minister. 

The writing is on the wall and unless government gets down from its high horse and shows it is able to listen, humble enough to acknowledge wrongdoing and implement solutions, Abela’s administration is doomed to suffer the same fate as that of the Gonzi administration.

‘Hamrun, we have a problem!’ 

After suffering a massive haemorrhage of votes in the 8 June European Parliament and local elections, the Labour Party appears to be gripped by inertia. 

Almost two months later, the party has failed to react to the result; to show it has listened to the electorate and will try to understand the multiple messages delivered. 

The only change so far has been the announcement that the deputy leader party affairs, Daniel Micallef, is stepping down. And according to him, this was a premeditated move agreed with Robert Abela two years ago. 

If anything is happening within the party there is no outwardly sign of it. If discussions are taking place, it remains unclear whether they are focussed and intended to reach a purpose. 

It seems the party is hurtling towards a reckoning of sorts in September when delegates elect a new executive and administration, and a deputy leader for party affairs. 

The party must ask itself whether it needs two deputy leaders; whether it is time to reintroduce the role of secretary general with a clear political function; whether it should have a CEO and if yes, how this role combines with that of deputy leader party affairs and a hypothetical secretary general role. 

Abela has not publicly indicated what type of change he would like to see in the Labour Party’s structures and attitude, if at all. Instead of calling the shots, Abela is leaving others to fill the vacuum. Whether this is intentional or not is unclear but it certainly suggests a state of confusion has gripped the PL.