Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1535753
11 ANALYSIS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 25 MAY 2025 infamy/fame (choose your shades) up by the minister. None of these provisions have been met and so there is no legal reason for the Għargħur council to be dissolved and consequently no new election can be held. The only option to force an election is to have all councillors resign of their own volition, something which does not appear to be on the table. Francesca Attard may be perceived as having betrayed those who voted for her by resigning from the PN but she was well within her rights to do so. Unlike what happens at national level, where a new election can be called if the gov- ernment of the day loses a vote of con- fidence in parliament, or loses a budget vote, no such provisions exist for local councils. Indeed, local councils are not even structured along government-op- position lines with the law making it in- cumbent that all councillors, irrespec- tive if they are part of the majority party or the minority party, should be handed a portfolio. Back to 1981: Not quite The PN has raised a storm in Għargħur in the hope of turning the issue in- to a national battle cry on democracy. Leader Bernard Grech accused the PL of not respecting the people's will in Għargħur, intimating that the party would not even respect the result of a general election. The former mayor even tried to brand her removal as a return to the 1980s with reference to the 1981 general elec- tion, which returned a Labour govern- ment despite the PN obtaining an abso- lute majority of votes. The references are not sporadic. Grech is trying to turn the Għargħur debacle into a 'fight' for democracy, similar to the battle cry the PN used in the 1980s. It is a strategy to galvanise the hard core. But what has happened in Għargħur is not a repeat of the 1981 election. The problem with the 1981 election was that the Labour government gerrymandered the electoral districts to ensure it would win enough seats to be able to govern, even if it did not obtain an absolute ma- jority. It was this action that gave rise to the 'perverse' result, which led to five years of political and social turmoil. There was no gerrymandering in Għargħur. What happened was that an elected PN councillor decided to aban- don the party and join forces with the PL. It is this action that precipitated the crisis. Trying to blow the issue up into some- thing it is not leaves the PN on shaky grounds at best. The more important question the PN administration should be asking itself is why a councillor elect- ed on its ticket felt the need to take the extreme measure of resigning from the party in the first place. Votes, money and boxing: Accountability The administration should have eval- uated the concerns raised by Francesca Attard over what she claims was a lack of good governance and financial mis- management by the former mayor. Helen Gauci has tried to give an expla- nation to various issues raised but her replies have been unconvincing. One of the more concerning issue appears to be a boxing event organised by the council in May last year, which has left suppli- ers begging to be paid. Gauci gave a dubious commitment that she will personally shoulder re- sponsibility for covering outstanding expenses for the boxing event. She did not say how. On Ricky Caruana's podcast, Gau- ci insisted the boxing event had to be covered by sponsors but one of them backed out at the last minute, causing a shortfall in income. Nonetheless, de- spite her insistence that the issue con- cerns her and not the council, people who have yet to be paid for services ren- dered are chasing the council for their money. In the best-case scenario, the boxing incident is the result of sheer amateur- ism by the former mayor. It appears that Gauci, with the complicity of the previous council, adopted a loose men- tality when it came to accountabili- ty and transparency—something very common with councils as attested by the yearly review conducted by the Au- ditor General. Democracy is not just about the will of the people but also about good govern- ance and the rule of law. In Għargħur, the PN has chosen to focus on votes but appears to have ignored issues of good governance. It was only after all hell broke loose that Gauci asked the Auditor General to investigate. Whether the political storm brewing at Top of the World will blow over as another petty council battle between the main parties or trickle down to the rest of the country and become a national political issue still has to be seen. Ultimately, the Għargħur debacle will become what the parties want it to be—a day of infamy and a threat to de- mocracy for the PN; a day of fame and a victory for good governance for the PL. The question is: Will people beyond the confines of the village really bother? We will only know in due course. Left to right: Gharghur's new Labour Mayor Mariah Meli and Francesca Attard, the former PN councillor who turned independent and voted with the PL councillors to bring down Helen Gauci