Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1332685
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 JANUARY 2021 Raphael Vassallo OPINION One district, to end all districts… LOOK: I know it's naive of me to keep expecting 'consistency' from Maltese pol- itics… but I can't help it, really. My brain is wired up that way. It wants there to be a logical connection in all the things that it looks at; and when there isn't any… Well, it's a bit like people who see Jesus on pieces of burnt toast… or 'alien faces' in rock formations on the surface of Mars. There is an element of self-deception in- volved: my brain tries to hammer out the missing connection anyway. But when it comes looking for logical thought-processes in Maltese political situations… to be honest, I would have more luck with all the toasted Jesuses and ancient Martian monuments put togeth- er. There simply never is any consistency, of any kind, anywhere to be seen… Take, for instance, two recent inci- dents (which should, by rights, have been viewed as parallels of each other). The first was Prime Minister's political chess-board antics last week: which re- sulted in Gavin Gulia's speedy resignation from Parliament, to make way for newly co-opted Oliver Scicluna. The second, Opposition leader Bernard Grech's abortive attempt to reshuffle his shadow Cabinet: where his efforts to in- ject 'new blood' (very loosely speaking) into an ageing Shadow Cabinet were met with resistance... and he ended up being forced to retain most of the candidates he was trying to oust. Ok, there are admittedly some differ- ences… starting with the fact that Gulia's seat in Parliament had been bequeathed to him by the electoral system; and as such, it represented a (somewhat indi- rect) expression of 'the people's will'. The same, however, cannot be said for Cabinet positions: 'shadowy' or other- wise. Those decisions ultimately rest with the party leader alone. But on another level, they are both cases where the 'leader' – of a party, or Parlia- mentary Group – attempted to impose his own will onto proceedings. In Abela's case, my guess is that he wanted to ensure he had the 'right' team in place (harsh as this may have been towards Gavin) in time for the next election… which cannot be more than around 18 months away. And his decision is likely to have pissed off certain sectors of his own party's sup- port-base: starting with Gulia's constitu- ents on the seventh district. As for Bernard Grech, there can be no real doubt of his intentions. He, too, wanted to assemble the 'right team', to contest an election where the PN is clear- ly the underdog. And – if I say so myself – his original choices were far more po- litically astute than the ones he ended up actually making. (I'm even willing to place a small bet that at least one – maybe two, possibly three – of the PN's 'new' shadow cabinet will go on to lose their seat at the next election. Any takers?) But let's not get side-tracked by the outcome. The bottom line is that one of those two party leaders defied the will of party constituents, by imposing an up- and-coming candidate of his own choice (at the expense of a more popular one, at district level)… and he got pilloried for it. The other did the precise opposite: i.e., he bowed to pressure – which also came, indirectly, from district level – and re- tained existing candidates, at the expense of more up-and-coming ones… and oh, look. What a surprise. Bernard Grech got pilloried for his decision, too… Hello? Guys? I mean, come on. Is it so very difficult to use the same yardstick on two entirely analogous political situ- ations? Either Robert Abela was right to stick to his guns: in which case, Bernard Grech was wrong to succumb to pres- sure… or it's the other way around. There is simply no interpretation which places them as either both right, or both wrong. (Again, it's a little like the toast image I mentioned earlier: it either really is a 'Di- vine Manifestation of the Risen Lord'… or else, just a slice of burnt toast. It can't exactly be both at once, can it?) Now: I've already let slip that I consider Grech's decision to have been 'wrong'… at least, in the sense that he would have been politically far better off by making some real changes to his core electoral line-up. But does it follow – as it should, if we are going to be consistent in our ap- proach – that Abela was 'right' to sacrifice Gavin Gulia for Oliver Scicluna? Well, that depends on whether we're ready to view the situation from Abela's perspective, instead of our own. On top of that, it also depends on whether we agree with Abela's political assessment of the two candidates concerned. Is Oliver Scicluna worth any more, in political terms, than Gavin Gulia? To be honest, I don't know enough about the former to make any assessment of my own. But I am fairly certain that, when it come to the Prime Minister actually de- ciding, the primary consideration with Gavin Gulia would have been his electoral strength at district level. And in the end, Abela evidently concluded that the possi- bility of losing at least some of that sup- port – and incurring all the added criti- cism to boot – was worth the exchange. Already, then – just by looking at it from Abela's viewpoint; and without even passing judgment on his actions – a cer- tain fundamental problem with Maltese politics comes swimming into view. And once again (not by coincidence) it is the same problem Bernard Grech found him- self facing, when similarly trying to break away from the traditional political mould. Simply put, it is that Malta is carved up into 13 electoral districts… which (cou- pled with our lax regulations concerning 'trading in influence') also double up as political power-houses – if not feudal fief- doms – for the individual candidates who contest them: some of whom will invaria- bly use that power to bully and blackmail their own party, when the time comes... Apart from the obvious threat this poses to the democratic process: the power it- self is often ill-gotten. To be fair to Gavin Gulia, I'm not at all sure any of this ap- plies to him personally (then again, I have never voted on his district: so how would I know?); but it is not exactly a secret that the influence wielded – by certain candi- dates, on certain districts – is also tied to our national tendency to 'buy' electoral support with 'favours'. We have all heard stories about prospec- tive candidates promising 'solutions' to all their constituents' problems – ranging from free domestic appliances, to guaran- teed jobs for relatives, to fixing the drains on a particular street… and we all receive flyers and brochures at home, come elec- tion-time, with offers of hampers, mobile phone chargers, candlelit dinners for two, tickets for a Hamilton Travel cruise in the Adriatic… or raffles to win a free car… all there for the taking: just by attending a