Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1034189
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 30 SEPTEMBER 2018 ANALYSIS Labour's fat cats leave JAMES DEBONO THE story of how the db group's City Centre high-rise was approved follows a familiar plot which fits perfectly in former Labour leader Alfred Sant's own 1990s narrative, when he lashed out at the "barons" and their "friend of friends" networks. News this week that a PA Board member was flown in on a private jet to vote for the project gave this plot the kind of surreal twist that used to fire Sant's literary imagination. And to reinforce the "back to the 1990s" theme, hotelier Silvio Debono, a well known PN supporter, rallied around him iconic figures from the Nationalist hey- day like former broadcaster-turned-PR man Lou Bondì and former Nationalist minister, later outcast, Jesmond Mugli- ett. Adding insult to injury are the plans for the extravagant project to host a "mil- lionaire's club", right beside the Labour- leaning community of the Pembroke housing estate. What could be more fitting now for a placard than the 1996 billboard shout- ing: "The environment belongs to all of us not to the barons"? "We have been betrayed… we never ex- pected this to happen under our govern- ment," an elderly Pembroke resident told me after the controversial board decision to approve this project by 10 votes to four. It is therefore no surprise that Sant has described the approval of the City Centre tower as a "mistake". But he does not stop there. He ques- tions the development model operated under both PN and present-day Labour administrations that sees public land be- ing allocated very cheaply to a developer for what is presented as a tourism project that is meant to generate jobs and inten- sify economic activity. Sant can do this with some credibility. For, apart from voting in favour of the MIDI project from the Opposition, no new project set on public land was pro- posed in his brief term of office. As Sant correctly pointed out, such a develop- ment does not consist only of a tourism proposal but also includes residential and a commercial development. Sant de- scribes this as a "double subsidy". Sant is not alone in Labour to object to the db project. Pembroke mayor Dean Hili and the president of the Local Coun- cils Association Mario Fava have criti- cised the approval of the project mainly because residents were ignored. But Sant was the first to challenge the economic logic captained by Minister Konrad Mizzi, who runs the Projects Malta 'PPP' arm – an agency responsible for special projects. Labour's Balzan councillor and aca- demic Desmond Zammit Marmara too does not mince his words. "The developer was given public land very cheaply, making great commercial profit, and the Planning Authority board approved this development despite the opposition of residents of the area, three local councils, twelve NGOs, and the In- ter-diocesan Environment Commission. Decisions like these raise the question of whether business interests are being given more pri- ority than the public in- terest and the rights of citizens". More 'unity in diversity'? Yet as Labour in- siders point out, it is extremely unlikely that Sant's criticism will result in any cracks from within. Joseph Mus- cat himself has an uncanny ability to take criticism in his stride, never use his official plat- form to crush dissenters, and often co-opting his critics along the way. He is also quick to distance himself from blunders like that committed by the PA's executive chairman Johann Buttigieg, who took the flak for the government af- ter flying in PA member Jacqueline Gili by private jet from her holiday in Sicily to place another vote in favour of the City Centre project. "He is still insulated from criticism. Moreover, those who criticise certain decisions do so in the comfort that they can still remain part of the party," one Labour insider told me when I asked him about the risk of Labour facing its first internal chasm. Labour activists may feel disgruntled about issues related to the environment and construction but they do not blame Muscat whom they still credit for bring- ing the party from the wilderness. "Even critics credit him for great advances in other areas. For example, leftists dissatisfied with environmen- tal policies are the most likely to back Muscat on civil liberties… our strength lies in uni- ty in diversity," the same insider told me. Muscat's 'dash for growth' The thing is that Labour vot- ers no longer fit in one catego- ry. Apart from traditional Labourites, La- bour's fold does include a number of floaters who voted Sant in 1996 and 2008 as a protest against corruption and collu- sion between the government and the fat cats of construction. This category may be the most likely to desert Labour if only it can find a decent alternative. However, Labour now also includes former Nationalist voters who grew up in awe of the "progress" which transformed Malta in the 1990s. Surveys show that in the last general election Labour contin- ued to drain support from the Nationalist cohort who had voted for Gonzi in 2013. As veteran political commentator ana- lyst Godfrey Grima told me when I asked him whether Labour is facing its first cracks, Muscat still has the wind blowing in his favour. Muscat, like Eddie Fenech Adami be- fore him, is presiding over "a dash for growth" in a period characterised by "so- cial and economic momentum…. What people expect in politics is an orderly wind, which balances public concerns with the expectations of seeing Malta prospering." Neither does Grima put too much weight on criticism from former lead- ers on current ones. "Former leaders in- cluding Tony Blair and Neil Kinnock are shadows from the past because the world moves on." While admitting that he himself suffers from inconveniences created by con- As a former leader, Labour MEP Alfred Sant can speak his mind without posing a threat to Joseph Muscat. So will his critique of the logic behind the db development in Pembroke trigger a wider debate in Labour on its friendship with the fat cats? Godfrey Grima