Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1070939
18 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR Matthew Vella MANAGING EDITOR Saviour Balzan Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 13 JANUARY 2019 14 January 2009 JPO, Alfred Sant dissent on Abela LAWRENCE Gonzi faced open dissent from his controversial backbencher Jeffrey Pul- licino Orlando, and his lead Member of the European Parliament, Simon Busuttil, over his decision to nominate George Abela for the presidency. They join the ranks of Alfred Sant and George Vella, Labour's former leader and deputy leader respectively, who expressed disagreement last Monday during Labour's parliamentary group meeting. This newspaper can confirm that Pul- licino Orlando and Busuttil expressed open disagreement on Monday's meeting of the parliamentary group with Gonzi, when the prime minister announced his decision to his Cabinet and MPs. Sources told MaltaToday that reservations on Abela's nomination were expressed dur- ing this meeting. It was pointed out that Muscat had been angling for a President of the Republic who could "unite the country" since the Labour leadership election. Members of the Cabinet and MPs com- plained with the prime minister that they got to know of the decision from the Sunday newspapers. Gonzi in fact informed Joseph Muscat in writing back on 29 December, 2008; while Muscat replied to his letter last Friday, 9 January, two days before the national press reported that the two leaders had agreed on Abela's nomination. It was also on Friday that a leak from the Office of the Prime Minister got reporters in a frenzy over the possible nomination of Abela. On Saturday, enquiries were already being made with George Abela, who declined to comment on his nomination. Gonzi in fact convened ministers and MPs on Monday, after news of Abela's nomina- tion had made it in all the Sunday newspa- pers, except for the Independent and the PN organ il-mument. It is clear Gonzi moved alone in his deci- sion to nominate Abela, having confirmed he was not prompted by Muscat having never received a list of candidates from the Labour leader. Nor did he discuss the choice with President Eddie Fenech Adami, whose for- mer personal assistant Richard Cachia Caru- ana was hoping to be Malta's next European Commissioner should Joe Borg be bumped up to the presidency. MaltaToday 10 years ago Quote of the Week A not-so silent revolution Editorial ''What qualifies as a prerequisite to the magis- trate is facts amount to a qualified crime and not to what someone else thinks of those facts.'' Mr Justice Giovanni Grixti on accusations of money laundering in the Panama Papers IT is by now an open secret that the National- ist Party is currently riven by internal dissent. PN leader Adrian Delia has been facing calls for his resignation ever since his estranged wife accused him of domestic violence towards her and their children. The couple, who have five children together, are currently going through an acrimonious separation. Since the allegations were made public, a series of leaked videos and recordings, as well as screenshots seemingly taken from Delia's phone, have been doing the rounds on social media. In addition to calls by civil society for Delia to step down, he is also facing a revolt within the PN parliamentary group. Sources who have spoken to MaltaToday claim that the embattled leader has lost the support of a majority of MPs, but still retains the support of a considerable portion of the party's grass- roots, complicating any attempts to force him out. Until recently, the party machinery was – understandably enough – trying to minimise or belittle claims of an internal war against Delia's leadership. But the events of the week have made such attempts all but impossible. PN deputy leader Clyde Puli now openly challenges party dissidents to come forward and 'stop playing games'; earlier, the embat- tled leader himself declared 'war' on 'traitors' within the party, in a private message that evidently got leaked to the press. At such times, it is safe to say that a point of no return has been crossed. But there is more to this apparently irre- solvable internal conflict than simply a ques- tion of accepting or rejecting Adrian Delia as leader. It is worth remembering the reasons for Delia's unexpected triumph at last year's leadership election. That victory had been made possible by reforms to the PN statute undertaken by none other than former leader Simon Busuttil: who, paradoxically, had all along objected to Delia even before he was anointed leader… to the extent of getting the PN Administrative Council to ask Delia to withdraw his candidature, on the eve of the election. There are multiple ironies here, and under- standing them could hold the key to possibly resolving the unsightly fracas that seems to have gripped Malta's main Opposition party of late. In February 2014, Busuttil – then PN leader – gave an upbeat speech about his re- form of the statute: claiming that the changes would 'transform the PN into a people's party', and provide the tools for the PN to 'continue regaining the trust of the majority of the electorate'. "We are undergoing a silent revolution. The PN is once again providing a direction as to how politics should be done," he said. That same reform also directly resulted in the election of Adrian Delia as PN leader in 2017: defeating even party veterans such as Chris Said. It was the first leadership election in the PN's history in which voting was ex- tended also to card-holding members (as op- posed to only 'kunsilliera', or members of the party's core structures). And one cannot fail to observe that the democratic choice of this much vaster pool of voters, would have been influenced by Delia's electoral battle-cry: i.e., that he intended to 'reclaim' the PN from a minority that had appropriated it. Ironically, the revolution against Delia we are witnessing today, is also a revolution against the very reforms that gave the Na- tionalist Party a much wider say in its own organization. One cannot 'transform the PN into a people's party', and then go on to ig- nore – or worse still, challenge and oppose – the choice of 'the people'. At the same time, however, the leader of a political party cannot expect to remain in office indefinitely, if he lacks the support and trust of his own parliamentary group. In poli- tics, one does not resign merely over one's own choices or actions; a leader in particular may also tender his resignation over govern- ability issues… such as the fact that he can- not 'lead' a party that simply refuses to follow him. Taken together, what these two considera- tions suggest is a return to the dilemma that had prompted Busuttil to reform the party in the first place: i.e., the existence of an evident gulf between, on one hand, the structures and the decision-making bodies within that par- ty… and on the other, the wider Nationalist electorate, on whose behalf those structures are supposedly functioning. Love him or hate him, Adrian Delia was the choice of the Nationalist Party's true owners. It was a choice based specifically on a rejec- tion of the Nationalist Old Guard… which in turn now refuses to accept the result of its own democratization of the party. While this cognisance doesn't necessarily bring with it any solutions to the impasse, it does at least point towards an underlying reality. The bone of contention is not Adrian Delia himself; it is whether the PN is ready to come to terms with its own vision of becom- ing a 'people's party'. The way forward therefore becomes to either ditch that vision altogether, and return to the same Old Guard that was so recently rejected; or to embrace the new identity of the party, and politely show the Old Guard the door.