Saved by the speaker

Friday’s parliamentary debate, which ended in Minister Austin Gatt surviving a vote of no confidence by the skin of his teeth, raised a number of serious political and constitutional questions.

This core issue concerns the entire notion of political responsibility – be it individual or collective – and culminated in the Prime Minister’s rather hollow claim that ‘the buck stops here’. Bearing in mind the undeniable fact that nobody has to date faced any kind of consequence for the fiasco – which in turn suggests that the ‘buck’ technically hasn’t ‘stopped’ at all – one can only wonder if Dr Gonzi fully appreciates the meaning of that expression to begin with.

Truth be told, that ‘buck’ should never even have landed on the Prime Minister’s desk at all. If it did so, it is only because an entire chain of subordinates passed it upwards in his direction: starting with individual officials at Transport Malta, whom we now know (thanks to Austin Gatt’s speech) also offered to resign along with the head of Gatt’s secretariat, Manuel Delia.

Unaccountably, all these resignation offers were turned down without a word of explanation. Likewise, Minister Austin Gatt’s resignation offer was in turn rejected by the Prime Minister: and this revelation alone raises a much more serious question in its own right.

If, as Gonzi revealed, a high ranking Cabinet minister had offered to resign on October 2 – why did we have to wait until last Monday (October 31) for such an important detail to be made public for the first time?

Even then, it appears that Gonzi only announced this fact once a last-ditch effort to placate and mollify Franco Debono proved unsuccessful. The question arises: would he have made that public announcement, had Dr Debono relented during last Monday’s PN executive council meeting?

Whatever the case, it is simply inconceivable that a Prime Minister should withhold such important information from the general public. Likewise, his decision to reject Gatt’s offer, without supplying any official reason, also warrants a full explanation… more so because the Prime Minister now claims to have ‘shouldered responsibility’ himself.

In what way has he done so? Other than by merely paying lip service to the principle of political responsibility, without actually translating his words into any discernable action?

The facts of the case suggest otherwise. Not only has Dr Gonzi ducked his own responsibilities in this instance: but he has also shielded his subordinates from assuming any responsibility of their own.

As for the debate itself, the quality of the contributions proved to be disappointing, to say the least. Many speakers, especially on the Opposition side, seemed content to merely point out the many flaws in the new bus system: flaws we are all already familiar with, and which in themselves shed no new light on the fundamental principle at the heart of this discussion.

With few exceptions  – notably Franco Debono himself – nobody even broached the issue of ministerial responsibility at all. Given the serious implications of its apparent absence from our entire political system, one sincerely expected more from the opposition. Is it possible that not a single speaker saw fit to compare the local situation with that of our peers in the rest of Europe – despite the abundance of examples in which ministers and public officials have assumed responsibility in deed, and not just in empty words alone?

Either way, now that the vote has gone the way it went, the Nationalist administration is left to pick up the pieces.

 There can be little doubt that the Prime Minister has been considerably weakened as a result of Debono’s abstention. He now captains an openly mutinous crew, and knows he cannot automatically rely on a parliamentary majority… with weighty implications for his government’s ability to take decisions in future.

Likewise, Austin Gatt himself is now a diminished minister: humiliated by his ‘rescue’ at the hands of Speaker Michael Frendo, and reduced to practically pleading in his often hysterical speech on Friday.

In normal circumstances, this is when a Prime Minister would give serious thought to the possibility of calling an early election. Not Dr Gonzi, however.

Upon leaving the House, the Prime Minister told a TVM reporter that he would instead be calling for a vote of confidence in his government next Tuesday – which he claimed he needed to ‘confront the economic crisis facing Malta’.

Clearly, then, Dr Gonzi has failed to take on board the full implications of Friday’s events. Though critically wounded, it is evident that he now intends to simply soldier on as though nothing happened  at all –  ignoring the reality of his government’s precarious position to his own peril, and (more ot the point) to the peril of us all. 

There are consequences for Franco Debono, too. He has after all defied a party whip, which in any normal democracy would lead to his expulsion from the party.

This is unlikely in the local scenario – where Gonzi’s government clings to power by a majority of just one seat. However, the PN is unlikely to let such an open act of defiance go unpunished, and Debono must know that his chances of re-election on the PN ticket are difficult. 

But then, in politics everything is possible.