The third vote of confidence called by a post-war Prime Minister

The Prime Minister’s vote of confidence is indeed a “rare motion” as It-Torca reported on Sunday.

Lawrence Gonzi has been navigating the stormy seas of government by negotiating with rebel backbenchers on a number of occasions, and yet he fails to buy long-lasting peace.

He had to backtrack on a project for the St John’s Co-Cathedral when Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando sounded the alarm. And it was thanks to angry MPs like Jean-Pierre Farrugia that made him partially backtrack – at least by ordering a partial refund – on the increased honoraria paid to his Cabinet ministers.

Again it was an angry MP, Franco Debono, who led him to quell the disquiet amongst his backbenchers by installing them as ‘parliamentary assistants’ to ministers, raising their salaries in the process.

But it was not enough to keep Debono’s demands for justice reform at bay. Over the past months, the MP made his mark felt with vocal criticism of the stewardship of the criminal justice system, and then announced he would abstain on the resignation motion against transport minister Austin Gatt.

His abstention, prompting the Speaker to cast his vote with the government to defeat the Labour motion, led to Gonzi calling for a vote of confidence in his government: the historically third such motion called by a prime minister.

Many remember the 1998 motion of confidence that was tied to a vote on the Cottonera Waterfront project that had been earnestly protested by the former Labour prime minister Dom Mintoff. His opposition to the project, always a thorn in the side of Alfred Sant’s one-seat majority, led to the prime minister to call early elections.

So writes parliamentary historian Godfrey Pirotta in his history of the House of Representatives: “The internal divisions besetting the government were soon to resurface and this time on a resolution which purported to lease areas in Senglea Creek of a period of 99 years...

“On this occasion Mintoff voted with the Opposition and the resolution was defeated when a division was taken. On June 16, 1998 the prime minister, Alfred Sant, once again resubmitted the said resolution to the House but this time with the proviso that he was moving it as a motion of confidence.”

The fateful vote took place on 7 July, and elections were called to take place in September 1998.

But the first motion of confidence by a prime minister was that of Gorg Borg Olivier during the coalition government of the early 1950s. The resignation of Speaker Anthony Pullicino prompted a crisis of a committee of supply, leading to the appointment of a new Speaker, Dr Joseph Cassar Galea in January 1953. The Speaker’s casting votes at committee stage were soon followed by another casting vote to defeat a vote of no confidence moved by Opposition leader Dom Mintoff.

By October 1953, Nationalist MP Fortunato Mizzi started raising doubts over coalition partners Malta Workers Party (the Boffa party), and declared he would be voting against the coalition.

“The Prime Minister sought to sway his critics and appealed to members to keep in full view the national interest rather than their own personal political views,” Pirotta writes. “But his appeal fell on deaf ears for when the motion that the House should resolve itself into a committee of supply was moved, the emotion was defeated by 18 votes to 17.”

Parliament was dissolved on the 15 October 1953 and new elections called.