Two Year Flashback

The Malta Independent on Sunday

Two Year Flashback

Two years ago this week was the week that was. The week whose events brought about the unthinkable that `in one way or another changed our lives for better or for worse.

On 3rd June 1998 Parliament voted against the motion presented by the nationalist opposition against the Cottonera project resolution and adjourned for Monday` 8th June 1998 where passage of the government resolution was believed to be a mere formality.

Between the 3rd and the 8th June 1998 hell broke loose. Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, president of the republic was hospitalised with a diagnosis which was not re-assuring. Mr Mintoff who had thus far not uttered a single word on the Cottonera project decided time was ripe to crack his whip and eventually voted against the Government motion which was defeated.

On Tuesday 9th June Prime Minister Sant made his public `press conference` in Vittoriosa calling for Mr Mintoff`s resignation or else. Mr Mintoff would not resign and the else had to happen.

With the sobriety accumulated over two years there are reflections which have to be made. The obvious question is whether it` could` have been avoided. In my opinion the only way it could have been avoided `was succumbing to Mintoff`s demands which were never spelt out specifically but could be `easily inferred.` Mintoff wanted to get the party back in his grips, send all `New Labour` where he thinks they belong and ensure that the country continues to play homage and respect for his undoubted achievements on the scale normally afforded to statesmen after their death.

Mintoff could do this in one of two ways. Either by installing a prime minister` who would succumb to his demands. Or by being `offered` presidency with executive powers superior to those `of the prime minsiter. The sudden illness of the incumbent president made the first week of June 1998 an appropriate time to strike.

It was clear that the price was too high to pay and this in the interest of the nation more than that of the party. The bold decision to go to elections with an unfinished job shows the greatness of Alfred Sant who sacrificed personal ambition in order to save the country from usurpation of power which would have made a mockery of the electoral vote. I know of no other mortal who could have taken this difficult decision so calmly, so resolutely and so consistently as much as Alfred Sant did.

The fact that he suffered a catastrophic electoral defeat enhances the greatness of his decision to consider the electorate as sovereign above all else.` In the run up to the election it is easy to be caught with the fever of thinking that one can pull it through, may be even increase the majority as the electorate would maturely repay the gesture of remaining faithful to its` mandate.

Dispassionate logic however clearly suggests that no government that` inherits a financial mess and tries to address it can win an election after only 22 months. That`s why democracy allows 5 years before being forced to face a new electoral test to allow time for the medicine to work and for recovery to deliver its dividends.

Where does all this leaves us now` Reality is that the events of two years ago is some sort of justice with the nationalists for two distinct reasons. Firstly it is only fair that they are made to shoulder the responsibility and electoral unpopularity of curing the financial mess they created through their over-spending of the 90`s. Secondly it is a sort of settling of accounts for the illegitimate third labour term of 1982 ` 1987 which by the simple rule of mathematics belonged to the nationalists. The same Mintoff who had denied the nationalist their legitimate win of 1981 squared the bill by handing them an unprospected electoral mandate in 1998.

In this sense the 1998 electoral mandate is as illegitimate as that of 1981. They were both engineered by Mintoff against the will of the majority.

To make similarities even more striking this third term (except for a 22 month break) of Nationalist administration is as damned and as hopeless as the third Labour term of 1982.` They are both under a shadow of illegitimacy. They are both being havoced by an inordinate strength of the US$ which is rendering our export industries uncompetitive. They are both marked by the high price of oil. They are both being starved of new foreign direct investment.

And both administrations are being subjected to some of the most crass economic mis-managements of all times.` Labour of the eighties tried to address the unemployment problem caused by the political instability, international recession and an inapporpriate rate of exchange policy,` by inflating public sector employment. The Nationalist third administration is seeking to address the economic structural faults by papering` over them with the extraordinary revenues from ill-conceived privatisations rather than addressing problems at their source.

Third term administrations are notoriously marked by mismanagement which can only be addressed by a new and stable government charged with fresh energy, creativity and free from an accumulation of compromises which an overstay in powers unavoidably brings. Labour called the election following their third term at the very last constitutionally possible date. If comparisons are anything to go by any current talk of early elections is totally misplaced. It takes an Alfred Sant to put the country interest before that of the party and his own.