Democratic deficit

The Malta Independent on Sunday

Democratic Deficit

How does one measure the state of health of Maltese democracy` Are the liberties guaranteed by our constitution and which by and large are experienced in practice enough to put our mind at rest that we are a truly democratic state`

Is the fact that I can openly criticise the elected representatives, who between one election and another have the faculty to act as temporary dictators,` good and sufficient proof of the state of democracy`

I would say that in Malta we comfortably pass all superficial tests of democracy. But deep down is this so`

This concept hit me when last week a friend of mine asked me whether I could inform him of any vacancy for his communications engineering graduate son who had just returned from a working experience abroad. Being a director on one of Maltacom`s subsidiaries about to launch a mobile telephony service I promised to look into the matter and to inform him about the procedures how to go about applying.

We were not talking about any favours, only` about my supplying information about vacancies and how to apply for them. In any event my position is hardly one which permits the opportunity to dispense favours. So I became slightly nervous when my friend, of well known political leanings diametrically opposed to mine but still a valued friend, asked me whether my interference could jeopardise the chances of his son`s application being considered favourably given that I came from the Labour stables.

What I stressed to myself following this experience is that democracy cannot come only from the letter of the law. People have to make democracy work and that people in these islands have little wish to make democracy work.

If it were otherwise how would the government remain so unaccountable to its electoral promises` Why are political parties allowed to draw up political manifestos without being constrained to draw up a detailed finance plan for the execution of the various promises.` Workers don`t accept the verbal promise of a wage increase from their employer and force the signature of a collective agreement to give legal effect to the enforcement of such promises. How then do they allow political parties to sway their vote without checking their` financing`

What`s` the use of promising you a tax rebate on this or that if I don`t inform that this rebate will be financed by raising direct taxes or by increasing the social security contributions`

At the crux of the democratic inefficiencies which we live in this country is the mismatch between the two political parties that between them govern us as subjects of a supposedly democratic country.

On one hand the Nationalist Party is the political cell of a wide network of power centres which support and re-inforce each other.` So one can see the Nationalist Party being viewed favourably by the other power cells in the network. These include the media, the civil service, the church, the judiciary, the business associations, the intelligentia and wherever else there is any semblance of real power.

These power cells network with each other quite unobtrusively often having the same persons wearing different hats in different positions.` They just are more comfortable with one another than they could ever be with Labour even if they sometimes admit that Labour has more sane policies for the evolution of this country`s well-being.

On the other hand the Labour Party is a stand-alone which traditionally had an ally in the General Workers Union its twin organisation in the industrial relations field.` For reasons which give merits to the right wing`s ability to condition the left wing to take a worse perception of itself than would reality would sustain, the GWU market share in the industrial relations was dented with the creation of various union organisations which are loosely or strongly networked with the system of power basis of the Nationalist Party. Much worse the co-operation between the MLP and the GWU has swung the whole pendulum from the extremes of the statutory fusion to the extremes of L-Orizzont of Saturday 22nd January 2000 reporting an important speech by the leader of the Opposition on page 12!

The reality of this situation as confirmed by the experience of 1996 `1998 Labour administration is that the Nationalist party has absolute power when in Government and considerable power through its network when in Opposition. On the contrary Labour have considerable power when in Government and absolutely no power when in Opposition.

If this is democracy than give me dictatorship at any time. At least I would not be living a lie!