An Honest Liar

22^nd September 2006
The Malta Independent - Friday Wisdom

This quote made news headlines this week:

“There is not much choice. There is not, because we screwed up. Not a little, a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have. Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true.

You cannot quote any significant government measure we can be proud of , other than at the end we managed to bring the government back from the brink. Nothing. If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say? That divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks are keeping the economy above board?

We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening.”

Presumably the quoted person implied that they did not lie at night because they do not talk while sleeping.

I do not blame you if you think that this is a public apology by our government for promising us before the 2003, through large billboards and glossy brochures, that government finance were on solid footing, only to admit soon after being elected that we had a totally unsustainable public deficit which is still being nursed back to health through increased taxation and which is slowing our economic growth and threatening our credentials to join the Euro in 2008.

But unfortunately the quote has nothing to do with domestic politics as whilst we have an abundance of political liars we have no honest liars.

The quote comes form the Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany who uttered these words at a meeting on 26^th May 2006 just one month after his government coalition had won the election by a majority of 210 out of 386 parliamentary seats. Mr Gyurcsany was musing how to tell the truth to the electorate about the hard and painful reform measures needed by the Hungarian economy to avoid a financial melt-down so soon after painting an artificially rosy picture in order to win the electoral mandate.

In an effort to come clean about the matter he seems to have taken the initiative to admit to his lies and even posted a full transcript on his own web log of what was said in the honest soul searching post-election meeting.

The Hungarian Prime Minister went on national TV last Sunday telling his people “we have to stop the deluge of lies which have covered the country for many years” and that people should not believe those politicians who offer “happiness as a gift”.

Hungarian police had to use tear gas and water cannon to quell violent protests in Budapest in which buildings were attacked and cars set alight. The worst fighting came when protesters stormed the state television building. Dozens of people were hurt, including many police officers.

The clashes happened following a rally demanding the resignation of the Hungarian Prime Minister. The main opposition party threatened to boycott parliament.

It was the first such unrest to take place in Hungary since the failed uprising against Soviet rule in October 1956. Hungarians are showing their disgust for being taken as fools by their politicians who willfully mislead them in order to steal their vote.

If in Malta we had honest liars amongst our political breed we will probably not react as violently as the Magyars as we have become so much used to political lies that they have become the accepted standard. How else could one interpret the big hole in our finances discovered by an incoming Labour government in 1996? And what about the big lie that the financial deficit was the works of the 22-month Labour government? Or what about more current lies that we are in good shape to qualify to join the Euro in 2008 or that our economy is performing wonders? Or that the free public health service would remain sustainable after 2008 when Mater Dei becomes fully operational? Or to flip the coin on the other side that the pension problem is not urgent and that it can wait a few more years of study even though knowing fully well that democratically it would more difficulty every year to undertake the necessary reforms as the population ages and nobody would like to vote against his/her own narrow interests?

The absence of honest liars in our political breed will inevitably lead to disenchantment with a growing section of the population disenfranchising itself from the electoral process. In fact current surveys shows that the most popular political grouping in Malta is currently NOVUN ( Non Voters and Undecideds).