Democratic pudding

The Malta Independent

Democratic pudding

You must have heard the story of the man who took the police to court for using force to stop him from battering his wife to death. He argued that he had every right to mistreat his wife and that the police had no right to interfere in family affairs` by using force against him.

This story flashed in mind when over last weekend Minister Gonzi and the nationalist media conveniently misinterpreted my contribution of last week and gave it` a meaning directly opposite to what was intended.

The battered wife is democracy. The violent husband is the nationalist party, supported as it is by a wide power network, that pretends to have` a perpetual title to govern and to obstruct undemocratically even when Labour gets a valid electoral mandate. The police are the labour party who if constrained to use force to save democracy they are charged by the violent husband for having used force to stop him abusing his wife.` `That`s what Minister Gonzi sounded like when he claimed I instigated Labour to use violence to govern.

The difference between Labour and Nationalists come out from the history books. Post-war history clearly show that Labour seek power to govern in the interest of the nation whereas the nationalist seek power to govern in the interest of the network. The difference is that Labour use power to protect democracy whilst the Nationalist use democracy to protect their power.

The test comes at the time democracy calls for power to be passed on.` This is the basic test which chooses users from abusers of democracy.

In the post war period Labour lost two elections when in power. In 1987 and in 1998 transition of power was immediate and smooth without any obstruction from its donors. But that is not the whole story. Three times in the post-war history Labour unilaterally chose that in the interest of democracy it was time to let the power pass. In 1958 and 1998 a Labour government resigned to protect democracy when it could have easily stayed in power to protect selfish interests. In 1987 Labour rose above itself to change the constitution,` the status quo of which could have given Labour a permanent stay in power against the democratic wish of the majority.

Compare this to the two times that the nationalists had to pass on power in recent history. In 1971 with a clear majority vote in Labour`s favour the country was kept in high suspense by repeated calls for manual recounts of the 5th district. `A few months down the electoral mandate we even had attempts to bribe a Labour MP to cross the floor. Than look at 1996 and see how lying through their teeth the nationalist spent their months in opposition denying the existence of a financial problem of colossal proportions which they had themselves architectured, and instigating popular dissent against tough fiscal measures which Labour had no real choice but to adopt.

And to complete the picture just remember that in name of democracy the Nationalist won two elections when their allies in the power network were freely awarding mortal sins to whoever voted, read or even heard Labour. And seeing public opinion turning against them we had recently high level appeals from nationalists quarters instigating Church authorities to throw their weight behind the nationalist political bandwagon again as if this was still 1961.

As in other aspects of life, the proof of the democratic pudding is in the eating and not in cheap talk and fact twisting.