Serjeta - Where are thou

The Malta Independent



The PN election logo, launched five full days after their own blowing the election whistle, adds Serjeta` to the overused and abused Xoghol, and Gid.

Xoghol and Gid have economic connotations and are open to debate whether we have created enough work, whether it is the right sort of work and whether our economic growth has been sufficiently strong to get us where we deserve.` Serjeta` has a more general application and applies to all spheres of life.

If there is an argument which finds general acceptance among the public, cutting across party lines, is that this country desperately needs a dose of Serjeta`; that this government has practically stagnated and abandoned its role to govern; that we keep spending money aimlessly without getting fair value for our taxes; that standard of living has at best stagnated and the least favoured of society are experiencing poverty again.

`So by including Serjeta` in their electoral logo the PN are signing their own failure certificate.` So it is strange that a party in government for three successive legislatures, except for a brief Labour interlude of 1996-1998, admits that the country needs a dose of Serjeta`. A rare show of honesty I dare say. But then, this has been the whole basic story line underpinning the EU membership project.

The subtle message has been that once government has mismanaged the country to the extent that it can no longer offer realistic solutions to home grown problems, the needed Serjeta` `to address our problems with rigour and determination, can only be found through an external agent ` hence we need to join the EU!` Indeed this was openly and frankly admitted by Ali Bayer in his report which the Government adopted an economic proof of why we need to join the EU.` He argued that EU membership will give us the economic shocks we need to get out of our stagnation.

So by including Serjeta` in their electoral logo the PN are signing their own failure certificate. And the PN are filling this performance void with a hate campaign against Alfred Sant. How on earth can any democratic government term the Leader of the Opposition as Perikoluz, purely for espousing different opinion from its own` How could the Foreign Affairs Minister proclaim that the EU will not deal with Alfred Sant as a democratically elected Prime Minister` These arguments normally come from Iraq and Cuba not from democratic Malta. `We really need Serjeta` which can only come from a change of government.`

There is more evidence which is putting in doubt the government`s democratic credentials. An appeal for a simple and straight declaration that the PN will gracefully accept the election result and pass on power, without photo finish gimmicks, in case of a Labour victory, continues to be met with arrogant silence.

And the PN`s post-event insistence that only valid yes and no votes should be considered to decide who won the referendum, attempts to deny Labour`s democratic rights for including constructive abstention within the No camp. No such complaints were raised before the event even though Labour`s policy was announced soon after the referendum writ was issued.

Granted, not all abstentions/cancellations were meant to be constructive. But providing for a generous 3.5% allowance for such non-constructive abstentions would still not award an overall majority to the Yes camp. Major exponents of the Yes camp, like Lino Spiteri and Joe Pirotta, accepted the argument but proposed a normal 5% non-constructive abstention to squeeze a decimal point majority. I contested the use of a normal rate for abnormal circumstances. So the most one can say is that the referendum was inconclusive for the purpose the government wanted it to serve. Government failed to get its clear pre-set objective to get an overall majority as an incontestable mandate for its EU accession project, in the process removing the major policy platform of the Opposition Party which will be forced to face an immediate election with a discredited policy.

For celebrating this David feat against Goliath arrogance and resources, Labour`s Leader is being labelled as some Hussein tyrant. We really need Serjeta` which can only come from a change of government.