Blairing the gap

The Malta Independent

Blairing the gap

The reason why this country seems in a perpetual electioneering` state is that in our two-party system the parties are roughly equal only in terms of voter popularity.` `On all other terms there is a huge gap, glaring and growing.

Whilst` Labour is a stand-alone political party facing internal competition from the GWU in terms of commercial activities conducted amongst the common base of supporters, the National party is a political cell in a power network which spans the social spectrum of the entire country.

When the nationalists are in power they have total power. Half the population of Labour sympathies starts feeling strangers in their own country. The political power of running the legislative and administrative pillars of democracy is fortified by effective and unrestrained support which the nationalists get from the other cells of the power network spread across the media, the judiciary, the intelligentsia, the church, the civil service, the business organisations and the white collar trade union sector.

In return the political cell feeds these other supporting cells with favourable treatment much of which has translated itself into the structural public financial deficit and the burgeoning national debt.

When in opposition the nationalist political cell loses its power but the power of the other cells in the network prevails and they start working to paint the labour` in government in the` darkest colours and obstructing the performance of its mandate. The 1996-1998 experience speaks volumes in this regard.

What was unacceptable and condemnable for the other power network cells under labour, become perfectly normal and acceptable under a PN administration even if the matter concerns something as basic for democracy as the appointment of an electoral commission acceptable to both parties, or the transparent running of the electoral process.

Mintoff used to bridge this power gap by the threat of violence which on occasions, by design or by accident, translated itself into real violence. Since labour rescinded, as is proper in a mature democracy, to the threat or use of violence, the nationalist power network has been having a field day , in and out of government.` The balance of power became firmly loaded against labour.

When labour was in government it was obstructed to in a way that rendered the country ungovernable,` in the process painting the nationalists, wrapped up in contradictions and compromises of their overstay in power,` as the choice of the lesser evil.

This situation has now reached breaking point. Unless they want to force labour to resort to the threat or use of violence with which Mintoff used to control the power network, the network must dismantle and give Labour a fair chance to govern in accordance with the electoral mandate.

Labour on its part needs to do what Tony Blair did in making the UK Labour Party acceptable in the former hard core conservative precincts, including the financial City. Labour needs to regain the hard core without losing the middle ground. Labour needs to be perceived as a sustainable alternative to a stale nationalist administration. Malta `s labour needs to fill the power gap by Blairing it.