Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1495665
LAST week Moviment Graffit- ti organised a public protest in the form of a press conference in Castille Square where it pre- sented an open letter signed by around 400 individuals coming from "diverse backgrounds and social realities", and who all embrace and identify with So- cialist, leftist or 'progressive' values. The open letter, addressed to Cabinet, is a reaction to the re- cent court ruling rescinding the fraudulent privatisation of three state hospitals. Joining Graffiti were well- known left-wing personali- ties, Sammy Meilaq and Yana Mintoff. I was not surprised. I have re- alised quite some time ago that Graffitti's populism was a cov- er up for their left-wing activ- ism and that the leaders of the NGO were actually quite some distance away on the left of the political centre. For them the Vi- tal-Stewards scandal is a handy reason to justify why privatisa- tion should not be allowed to happen. But actually they are against privatisation on ideolog- ical grounds. As they put it: "The privati- sation of public assets should never be pursued by any gov- ernment with the people's long- term aspirations at heart. It is a procedure that benefits only the rich, to the detriment of every- one else." This is not correct. Many en- terprises that were successfully privatised – like Mid-Med Bank (now HSBC) and Telemalta (now GO) – today pay the State much more income tax annual- ly than the profits the ventures made when they were the prop- erty of the state. But this is too much for these left-wingers to stomach. And they continued: "That this unsound pathway to national development was adopted by the Labour Party is a stain on its his- tory, and a betrayal of the core beliefs that so many sympathise with." Incidentally the so-called 'pri- vatisation' of the management of three hospitals completely failed because the deal was fraudulent from its very beginning – 'ab ovo' as the Romans used to say. And not because all privatisa- tion deals are rotten, as these left-wingers imply. In fact, the deal was not even considered a public private partnership (PPP) because, as was said, the private partner was taking no risks. The deal in fact was 'sui gener- is' and hardly fashioned accord- ing to established models of pri- vatisation or PPPs. One must not forget that some four months ago, a very mod- erate left-wing Labour Party exponent, Desmond Zammit Marmara, announced that he had decided to renew his La- bour Party membership, saying: "I still consider myself a staunch Labourite but by this I now un- derstand simply yearning for the day when once again I shall be able to form part of a Labour Party that is really Labour in its decisions and actions, and not a sham, being Labour in name only." Earlier he had lamented that the Labour Party was being ruined by "brainless idiots". The latest MaltaToday poll confirmed that support for Robert Abela's Labour Party is steadily dwindling. It is being abandoned by people from the two extremes of the political spectrum that Muscat had gal- vanised into one glorious and victorious movement – before the rot started soon after Mus- cat's 2013 electoral victory. That movement is no more. Abela is now caught between a rock and a hard place. If he espouses policies that are fa- voured by the likes of Sammy Meilaq and Graffitti, he will lose support from the middle ground... while if he does the opposite he will have to face the condemnation – and the aban- donment – of the real leftists in his party. Meanwhile, one would expect the Opposition to make sub- stantial advances in populari- ty. This is not happening with people abandoning Labour pre- ferring not to vote rather than vote PN. Instead of building a new coa- lition – as Eddie Fenech Adami and Joseph Muscat had done before they won the trust of the majority – the current PN has tended to lock itself and with- draw into its shell, much like turtles do when they smell dan- ger. The PN needs to open up to everyone rather than criticising anyone who is not a 'virgin pure' Nationalist – whatever that is. Otherwise the Labour Party inherited by Abela will keep on dragging its feet in power and Malta loses the chance to renew itself sooner rather than later. An opportunity for China Writing in The Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius argues that a strong China is bolstering a weak Russia. That is how he reads the recent meet- ings in Moscow between the leaders of the two countries. The Chinese are not yet pro- viding weapons to Russia but Xi certainly offered moral and psychological support in what, according to Ignatius, might be described as a "get-well visit to an ailing relative." The paradox of the Ukraine war is that Putin's bid for greater power in Europe has made him weaker. This diminished Rus- sia will fall increasingly under China's influence, unless there's an unlikely shift with a West- ern-leaning leader replacing Pu- tin. Bloomberg's Iain Marlow thinks that Xi's meetings in Moscow with Vladimir Putin put the Biden administration in an uncomfortable position: on the sidelines as two adversaries discuss a Ukraine peace propos- al that the US has deemed unac- ceptable. Sceptical US officials consider the Chinese ceasefire proposal to be a ceasefire that would re- ward Moscow's invasion by se- curing its territorial gains. If the US spurns the agreement, "China will likely ramp up mes- saging that the US is opposed to a cease-fire, that the US is opposed to the end of the war," according to Bonny Lin, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who once served at the Pentagon. The Biden administration has unsuccessfully tried to keep China on the sidelines since the start of the Ukraine invasion, and the opposite appears to have happened. Even as Xi and Putin grow closer, China is finding a receptive audience for its broad- er diplomatic push around the globe. China has shrugged off US sanctions over the many part- nerships that Chinese compa- nies have with Russia, bought oil from Iran's regime in defiance of western demands and helped orchestrate a diplomatic detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Major global economies such as India and Brazil are refusing to choose between China and the West, arguing they don't want a new Cold War. It seems that China's clever diplomatic tactics are paying off. 7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 MARCH 2023 OPINION The unravelling of Muscat's coalition Michael Falzon micfal45@gmail.com Former union militant and veteran Labourite Sammy Meilaq addressing a crowd of activists beneath the statue of leftist political visionary Manuel Dimech at Castille Square. Meilaq and Yana Mintoff (wearing red scarf) joined Graffitti activists in calling on government to stop the sale of public property and introduce reforms to curb corruption