Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1440477
9 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 5 JANUARY 2022 talent pool or promoting loyalists? Labour MPs under the tenure of Robert Abela as Prime Min- ister in the space of a two years, has raised questions of demo- cratic legitimacy, simply be- cause these MPs, two of which are now serving ministers, were not elected in a general election. This has been interpreted as a way for Abela to create his own solid bloc of loyalists in a legislature inherited from his disgraced predecessor. It also provided him with an opportu- nity to widen his limited talent pool, with Clyde Caruana and Miriam Dalli injecting dyna- mism in his Cabinet and Oliver Scicluna bringing his experi- ence in inclusion into the par- liamentary group. The risk is that candidates co-opted to parliament may be more accountable to the party leader who handpicked them, then to voters. Moreover they are being given an advantage over rival Labour candidates, just weeks before a general election. The systematic use of co-op- tions also betrays Abela's pref- erence for a more presidential style of government, evident in his recent invitation during a session of the youth parlia- ment for a national discussion on whether prime ministers should be allowed to appoint technocrats to Cabinet, even though they are not elected to parliament. This kind of position had been previously privately en- tertained by Lawrence Gonzi who had complained of his limited talent pool in a leaked United States cable on a meet- ing with former US ambassa- dor Molly Bordonaro. Yet Ab- ela is not inventing the wheel even if co-options were used more judiciously. Eddie Fenech Adami and Al- fred Sant were also co-opted Both Eddie Fenech Adami and Alfred Sant were initially co-opted to parliament after failing to get elected in previous elections. It is hard to imagine the trajectory of their career had they not been handpicked by the party leadership to take a parliamentary seat. Ironically Borg Olivier's decision to co- opt Eddie Fenech Adami came back to haunt him, as the young Birkirkara lawyer grew in stat- ure to eventually replace him. Before being co-opted, Fenech Adami had unsuccessfully con- tested the 1962 and 1966 elec- tions, only to become MP in 1969 following a co-option for the seat of Ġorġ Caruana who had previously been elected in a casual election. Labour prime minister Al- fred Sant was also co-opted to parliament to fill a vacant seat upon the death of Labour MP Joseph P. Sciberras. Yet both Fenech Adami and Sant were already big shots in their party, with the former already serving as president of the Administra- tive and General Councils, as- sistant secretary-general, and editor of PN organ Il-Poplu, and the latter as Labour Party president. Both became party leader af- ter serving a number of years as MPs and both were re-elected on their own steam to parlia- ment in elections in 1971 and in 1992, respectively. This was not the case with other party leaders who were not sitting MPs upon their election as par- ty leaders. Muscat, Delia, Grech: Making way for the new leader Joseph Muscat was also co-opted following his election as party leader after the 2008 election, after Labour MP Jo- seph Cuschieri gave up his seat. Yet Muscat was already a big shot in the party, having been elected as an MEP in 2004 with 37,000 first preference votes. Muscat also remained in 'debt' with Cuschieri, who was first fielded as an MEP candidate in 2009 (having only taken his seat after Malta was awarded a sixth seat in 2011) and subse- quently appointed ambassador to Greece, despite lacking any experience in international di- plomacy. Both Adrian Delia and Ber- nard Grech, two political out- siders with no constituency base, were also co-opted to parliament after being elected by party members. And while Delia's path to parliament was messy thanks to internal party strife and the insubordination of the Dem- ocratic Party, Grech's path to parliament was more of a formality following the resig- nation of entrepreneur Ivan Bartolo, who had himself been elected in a casual election. Internal party strife also pre- vented Delia from rewarding Jean Pierre Debono for his sac- rifice in vacating his seat. His plan to co-opt Debono back to parliament after David Stel- lini's resignation, was thwarted by the party's Gozo section's insistence on the co-option of a Gozitan MP since Stellini him- self had been elected in a casual election instead of Gozitan MP Marthese Portelli. Ultimately the party opted for the co-op- tion of Kevin Cutajar. So what makes the use of co-options by Robert Abela any different from previous ones? The legal mechanisms surely remain the same and Abela is not re-inventing the wheel. The only difference is the sys- tematic use of the mechanism in such a short timeframe, dic- tated by the unprecedented circumstances which saw Abe- la struggling to leave his mark in an administration inherited from his larger-than-life, but disgraced, predecessor. Adrian Delia Kevin Cutajar Bernard Grech Unelected MPs who made it to parliament PL PN Clyde Caruana Bernard Grech Oliver Scicluna Adrian Delia Miriam Dalli Kevin Cutajar Jonathan Attard Andy Ellul How MPs co-opted in this legislature have made it to parliament Elected after none of those eligible to contest casual election in their district presented their candidature Clyde Caruana Andy Ellul Elected after resignation of MP elected in casual election but immediately renounced on taking seat Oliver Scicluna Adrian Delia Co-opted after resignation of serving MP elected previously elected in a casual election Miriam Dalli Bernard Grech Jonathan Attard Kevin Cutajar Elected MPs who gave up seat in parliament in this legislature PL PN Joseph Muscat Jean Pierre Debono Chris Cardona Ivan Bartolo Gavin Gulia* Marthese Portelli Etienne Grech Peter Micallef** Edward Scicluna Simon Busuttil Manuel Mallia David Stellini Silvio Grixti * Elected in by-election only to immediately resign to trigger co-option of Oliver Scicluna ** Elected in by election only to immediately resign to trigger co-option of Adrian Delia