Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1463655
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 APRIL 2022 9 INTERVIEW science, and an art But there is another problem. We are at a disadvantage, as a department, also because… we teach about public life. Essential- ly, public policy is about public life. And there is a lack of trust in public life, at the moment. Ours is an individualistic soci- ety; a society that is increasingly becoming more inward-looking. We saw this especially during the election campaign. Sift through all the electoral promises, and it all roughly boils down to the same thing: 'what's in it for me?' This is true not just of Malta, by the way. In fact, the Secre- tary-General of the United Na- tions, Guiterres, recently spoke about the 'trust-deficit' in pol- itics. So there has clearly been a general erosion of trust in public life, across the board. Would you say that the histori- cally low turnout in this election – 85.5% – was, in itself, a reflec- tion of this 'trust-deficit'? If so, what would you attribute this loss of trust to most, in Malta's specific context? Let me put it this way. If you add up all the people who either didn't vote, or didn't pick up their voting documents, or who inval- idated their vote… the number is very high, by local standards. But it would have been much higher, if it wasn't for the parties themselves – especially the La- bour Party – which were 'follow- ing up', if not 'pestering', those non-voters. I know of ordinary citizens who received a phone-call from the Prime Minister in person, at sev- en in the evening, to urge them to vote. That was the extent of the drive the parties went into. And I even have my doubts about that 'mistake' the Electoral Commis- sion made, when announcing the 2pm turn-out [as '40%' instead of '45%']… Don't get me wrong, it's just a hypothesis. Mistakes do, after all, happen; but let's just say that it also served another purpose. It was an alarm-bell, or a wake-up call, for the party's machinery to get into gear, and contact all those who had not yet gone to the polls. But there is another problem – apart from those who refused to vote – which I think hasn't been captured by the media so far. It's about the number of candidates. In 2017, we had 210 candidates in total. Last Saturday, we only had 177: a decrease of around 40 can- didates, in five years. So while the Labour Party has a lot to celebrate, in this election… it also has a lot of homework to do. What happened, for example, to the LEAD programme: what was specifically intended to bol- ster female participation in the political process? The outcome is not positive at all. It's not just that the number of females candidates who got elect- ed to Parliament – by votes, as opposed to by the gender-equal- ity mechanism [which hasn't happened yet] – was already a step back, in itself; but so was the number of women who chose to be candidates in the first place. So yes, I think that this does have to do with a general erosion of trust. There are a number of structural changes that we need to make, to the political system in Malta. Some of these issues came out directly in this election. ADPD has filed a Constitutional case over the 'unfairness' of the re- sult; and we saw higher levels than usual of clientelism (or 'power of incumbency'). On the basis of what this campaign, then: what would you say are the most pressing political is- sues to tackle right now? Let's start with ones you just mentioned. There is a certainly a lot that needs to be done within our electoral system. But before turning to the Single Transferable Vote itself – which, for all its flaws, is also a very representational sys- tem: it gives more direct control to voters, over who actually rep- resents them – I think we have to look at the configuration of Mal- ta today. I think Malta should be configured differently, myself. With regard to election, it has always been a system of 'districts'. But the Maltese political plat- form has been redesigned twice, in recent years: first in the 1990s, through the setting up of local councils; then in the 2000s, with the establishment of the regional levels. So in order to address the clientelism issue, for instance: I think it would make more sense, to organise our voting structures on a regional – as opposed to dis- trict – basis. Individually, the five regions are much bigger than the 13 dis- tricts; so it would be that much harder for individual candidates to knock on each single door in his constituency; or to know all their constituents by name. And it would also address the problem that a smaller party like ADPD – which doubled its share of the vote, in this election – still ends up not winning a seat. This is how the quota works out in today's district system; on a much larger regional level, however – and the framework is all already there; and already functioning – it might be a differ- ent story. Certainly, I think that would be a good first step to take. As for other issues that have come out in this election: there were a lot. But firstly – and we have been talking about this for a long time now – the issue of due diligence, at candidate approval stage. I cannot understand, for in- stance, how Rosianne Cutajar was allowed to be a candidate for the Labour Party again. Thank God, the electorate made its deci- sion, and did not choose her; even though she could still end up re- taining her seat anyway, through the gender quotas mechanism. But it shouldn't have to come to that. There should be a prop- er due diligence process in place; and if it is to be significant, there should be at least one independ- ent auditor, from outside the par- ty system, to vet candidates. But this becomes difficult, for the reason I already explained. If the number of candidates is also decreasing, every year… it be- comes a case of 'beggars can't be choosers, in the end. Again, however, it boils down to the lack of trust. That, ulti- mately, is what our department is concerned with: because the first step to fix Malta's political situa- tion, has to be to try and restore the loss of trust. How can that be done in prac- tice, though? And in particular, through education? That brings us back to the oth- er meaning of 'politika': public policy, and – especially – public administration. Now: when we talk about 'pub- lic administration', we are talking about multi-level governance. Some of our graduates, for in- stance, are executive secretaries of local councils… and an 'exec- utive secretary' is like a CEO: re- sponsible for administration, and also finance. We also have graduates who work at the national level of public administration, too. That includes the Director-General of Customs; the Police Commis- sioner – who did a Masters in Public Policy with us – and many others who are either directors in the public service, or rising up through the ranks from lower to middle-management; and also, a number who work with Europe- an institutions. Because 'multi-level govern- ance' means starting from local councils; and going all the way up to supra-national institu- tions, such as the Planning and Priorities Co-ordination Divi- sion [which administers Euro- pean funding to Malta]. Many of PPPCD staff have obtained degrees in Public Administra- tion here; as have several of the technical attaches at Dar Malta, among others. I'm mentioning all this, to give an idea of just how vast the reach of politics really is: it's not just a case of fixing individual prob- lems with the system… but each department or sector must also learn to organise its own struc- tures better. The standards of professionalism, at all these lev- els, can be raised through an injection of management; or through the acquisition of skills. One other thing we want to do, is introduce 'Politics and Govern- ance' at Sixth-Form level: first of all, to democratise political sci- ence; secondly, as an investment in our citizenship, rather than in our academia. Ultimately, we want to create people who are aware that they are citizens; and that, as citizens, you have both rights, as well as obligations towards the nation state you are part of. To get there, however, we need to work on improving our debat- ing skills, and our critical think- ing. Because like you said earlier, you can understand how the sci- entific elements of policy-making can be taught; because there's a method. But politics is all about debat- ing; it's all about thinking, and making sense of the chaos of the world around us; and we have to start teaching those skills, too.