Better wild promises than fake ones | Joseph Muscat

It can't be easy being leader of the Opposition. Up until only a few weeks ago, the steady mantra of criticism levelled at Joseph Muscat was that his Labour Party, while always quick to pounce on government's decisions and policies, never made any proposals of its own.

Yet, just last week, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi came out guns blazing with a withering attack on the economist (and former MEP) from Burmarrad: suddenly accusing him of making "wild promises" that he knew would be impossible to keep in practice.

And the contradictions don't end there: at 37, Muscat is often dismissed as 'too young' to be taken seriously as Prime Minister-in-waiting. At the same time, efforts are constantly being made to link the same Muscat to events and incidents that occurred way back in the late 1970s and early 1980s... when he himself was still around 10 years old.

If a man is too young to be Prime Minister... reason dictates that he cannot also be old enough to assume responsibility for the antics of Prime Ministers who came before him. But then again, since when does reason have anything to do with politics?

In any case, these and other contradictions flit through my mind as I make my way into the stark and (quite frankly) sterile environment of the Glass Palace in Mile End Hamrun, for an appointment with the man Dr Lawrence Gonzi now accused of being 'irresponsible' and 'dishonest'.

"That's a bit rich, coming from a Prime Minister who's made so many empty promises himself," Muscat immediately hits back when I ask for his reaction. "Maybe Dr Gonzi should remember where he was immediately before the last election... when he was heard making certain promises to someone in the north of the country..."

Here follows a litany of pledges made by the PN before the last election, and promptly forgotten afterwards: including written assurances sent out from OPM to various categories of parastatal employees - among them, Air Malta.

But turning to his own promises (more of which later): Muscat is quick to distinguish between what he refers to as the 'reasoned proposals' submitted by his own Labour Party, and the 'fake' ones emanating from the PN.

"Our proposals may appear vague, to people who have an interest in not understanding them. But better a vague proposal than a fake one. The difference between us and the PN is that we don't make false pledges. Like the promise to widen the tax bands before the last election, which was clearly fake..."

Interestingly enough, it also transpires that Muscat's proposals regularly crop up for discussion at the ongoing series of public dialogue meetings with the Prime Minister, organised by the newly appointed 'special envoy' Simon Busuttil.

"Yes, I am told that Dr Gonzi spends more time at these meetings warning civil society about me - that I'm not to be trusted, etc. - than actually listening to the people's concerns..."

Muscat here raises questions as to whether the scope of these meetings is for the Prime Minister to learn about civil society's problems... or vice-versa.

"It seems to me that the Prime Minister is confusing 'public consultation' with 'institutionalised clientelism'," he argues... adding that this is precisely where the 'power of incumbency' can be most effectively wielded for all the wrong reasons.

"And another thing: why are the meetings organised through the auspices of AZAD (the PN's think tank)... and not through the ministry of Chris Said, which supposedly holds the portfolio for public dialogue and consultation?"

Muscat adds that, despite the existence of a ministry specifically for this purpose, the responsible minister is not even present for the meetings.

"When you have an entire department, paid for out of the public purse to handle public dialogue and consultation... why bypass him altogether when organising public dialogue and consultation meetings...?"

According to Muscat, even the individual ministers whose work is discussed at these meetings are never physically present. "Recently, the Prime Minister met the monti hawkers. But the two ministers whose decisions had affected the daily lives of these people - namely Austin Gatt and Jason Azzopardi - weren't even there to listen to their complaints. These are the same ministers who had relocated the monti hawkers out of the Valletta ditch, forcing them to move all the way to Marsa, if you don't mind..."

OK, so there is a modicum of artificiality surrounding these public consultation meetings. Most would probably agree. But this tells us little or nothing about Labour's own plans for the future. No matter how hypocritical the present government may be in its criticism, it remains a fact that Labour in general (and Muscat in particular) does seem to have a habit of making proposals without explaining how (if at all) they can be put into effect.

Examples include the famous pledge to lower water and electricity bills, without increasing government expenditure: something many observers (including energy experts) happen to think is impossible.

Muscat has on more than one occasion insisted that Labour wants to achieve this, but we are still none the wiser regarding the mechanics of how it intends to go about it...

Muscat however corrects me on a point of terminology. "It is not something we just 'want' to do. This is something we WILL do..."

OK, but... how?

"First of all, for us it is simply not an option to sit back and say something is 'impossible'. There are a number of options available that have always been there, but which government has ignored for years... until now, when elections are just around the corner."

Foremost among these, Muscat cites the international market price of oil: on which our country unaccountably remains almost 100% dependent for energy production.

At present, he goes on, we are buying our oil at full market prices... unlike years gone by, when (even under previous PN administrations, Muscat concedes) government used to benefit from preferential rates.

Now that time is running out before the next election, Muscat tells me that Finance Minister Tonio Fenech has finally woken up to the possibility of securing oil at better rates.

"Right now he is in Qatar, presumably trying to reach a deal on oil prices. My question is: what took him so long? Why did he not do this before? We have been urging him to enter into negotiations over oil prices for ages. Why did he acknowledge this as a possible avenue only now?"

Answering his own question, Muscat suggests that it had always been 'in some people's interest' to maintain the status quo; and that if the government is now experiencing a change of heart, it is only because of an imminent election against very unfavourable odds.

"Still, I sincerely hope Tonio Fenech is successful, and that he does come back from Qatar with the best deal possible. But if he does, it will only mean that we have spent the past years buying oil at much higher rates than we needed to. And who paid for the difference in the meantime? The ordinary man in the street, who saw his electricity bills skyrocket because of government's lack of foresight and initiative..."

It is now Muscat's turn to go onto the offensive: and implicit in his line of criticism is the notion that the PN government, while loudly rubbishing Labour's ideas, is consistently coming round to doing exactly what Labour has all along been suggesting... only far too late to make any real difference.

Muscat points towards government's previous policy of simply refusing to absorb losses at Enemalta, which was the original reason why utility prices shot up by 190% in 2008... a policy that was very suddenly (and very recently) reversed.

"Tonio Fenech recently announced his government would be absorbing 26 million from Enemalta, so that the burden would not be borne by the taxpayer," Muscat remarks. "This is something he could have done from the very beginning. Why did he not do this before, when everyone practically begged him to...?" 

Muscat reminds me that in 2008, the same government was singing from a completely different hymn book. Back then, the tune was all about passing those same costs onto the consumer. Suddenly it seems the government has developed pangs of social conscience... and just a few months before an election, they turn around and promise to do what they could (and should) have done five years ago.

"The way things are going, I will not be at all surprised if the government says it will lower the electricity bills just before the next election: even if they are now criticising us for saying the same thing..."

Elsewhere, Muscat points towards government's reluctance to consider alternative technologies. Its lukewarm reaction to the Sargas proposal, for instance, which claimed it could reduce the cost of energy by half in the next five years. 

"Now, all this time later, they tell us they are studying the proposal. What were they waiting for? They could have done that months ago..."

Muscat argues that in all these cases, government was perfectly content to allow ordinary citizens to carry on paying the price for its own mistakes... and would continue, were it not for the coming election.

"If Gonzi tomorrow announces that, because of an agreement with Sargas or because of new oil prices from Qatar, the price of electricity will go down... we will turn to families and tell them that they have been unnecessarily paying high prices for electricity for all this time..."

Meanwhile, tensions between government and opposition have continued to sporadically flare up over what Muscat describes as Gonzi's 'arrogance' in disregarding parliamentary procedure.

Just the day before our interview, the Opposition formally protested against government's announcement of an unprecedented four-week Easter recess... at a time when no vote has actually been taken in parliament since last January, when government ostensibly lost its majority in the House.

Among the motions deferred (or deflected) as a result was a motion of no confidence in Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici: who has once again been in the limelight recently, this time over renewed investigations into the mysterious death of Nicholas Azzopardi in police custody in 2008.

Muscat expresses consternation at what he describes as a "stubborn unwillingness to confront reality: both with regard to the situation in Parliament, and also on the situation within the police".

"To me it is shocking that there have been two deaths associated with the Police Corps on Carm Mifsud Bonnici's watch, and it's as though nothing happened at all."

Muscat refers to the case of Nicholas Azzopardi, who claimed on his deathbed to have been savagely beaten by the police while in custody, then thrown off the bastions and left for dead.  Also, that of Bastjan Borg: a man who suffered from mental health problems, and who was fatally shot by five policemen in a 2007 altercation in Hal Qormi.

It later transpired that the police had been warned more than once about the man's instability, and yet still went to the scene of the disturbance unprepared.

More to the point, Muscat reminds me that the internal and external inquiries never seemed to get anywhere, and to all intents and purposes are still ongoing five years later.

"The case has been forgotten, or so it seems," Muscat remarks, pointing towards a "missing link" that connects both cases. The Labour leader points out Mifsud Bonnici was politically responsible for the actions of the police in either cases: first as parliamentary secretary within the Home Affairs Ministry, and later as minister.

 "If there's one area where we have to have peace of mind, it's that the rights of people in police custody are respected," Muscat adds... warning that the consequences of sweeping such incidents under the carpet are too serious to ignore.

On this score, efforts by the Opposition to even discuss such issues have been hampered by the behaviour of the minister: who has separately resisted efforts to introduce greater transparency in police proceedings.

"Remember the discussion on introducing the right to legal assistance while under arrest? Carm Mifsud Bonnici is on record saying that this should only be introduced if the police were given access to a DNA analysis machine. When he realised that he didn't have the backing of the majority, he changed his tune. But still: what happened to the DNA machine? Was it ever introduced? If so, we never heard a thing about it..."

Perhaps (I suggest) it's being used to test a certain hypothesis about the Nationalist Party, made by Charles Mangion before the last election...

Muscat laughs, and I take the opportunity to suggest an alternative reason for the many apparent U-turns attributed to Gonzi by the Opposition leader.

Going back to the spate of meetings with civil society, I seem to recall that the general purpose was for the PN to reconnect with ordinary citizens. In fact, Gonzi had urged members of his party to (in his own words) 'go into people's kitchens'.

Could it be, then, that the recent raft of apparent changes in government policy on so many issues may have come about because Gonzi suddenly realised how far removed his government had been to this same 'kitchen reality'?

Muscat smiles wryly. "Personally my impression is that people don't want Gonzi and Tonio Fenech anywhere near their kitchens is because they're tired of all the omelettes (frejjeg) they keep making..."

But he also discerns a more serious reason for Gonzi to wish to steer clear of such intimacy when visiting people in their homes.

"When we do house visits people often take us into their kitchens. You'd be amazed at how many of them keep their water and electricity bills stuck to the fridge with fridge-magnets..."

Al the same, I detect in this argument the notion that Gonzi's apparent 'pangs of conscience' may indeed be associated with a belated realisation of the difficulties faced by ordinary people... which would at least make them honest...

Muscat shrugs. "If so, it is strange that it always seems to take an electoral hammering for the government to realise its policies were wrong..."

Here the Labour leader reminds me of how consistent this pattern of behaviour has really been: pointing to the revised policies that came in the wake of last year's divorce referendum... culminating in the remarkable turnaround whereby a Nationalist government is now proposing legalised civil unions for gay couples.

"And yet, I remember that when we had, as Opposition, suggested introducing protection for gay couples as part of the Rent Law reform, Fenech had objected, saying; 'that's all we need now - recognition of gay couples!'..."

In view of all this, Muscat rejects the notion that Gonzi has genuinely changed his ways.

"There is no Damascene conversion at work here. Just an election round the corner, that's all..."