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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 16 MARCH 2014 28 Letters Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. Who is to be the next President of Malta? Most punters would put their money on the outgoing Prime Minister, Eddie Fenech Adami. The choice would most certainly be welcomed by his party, his followers and a number of persons who would see his appointment as the crowning of his years of service to the state. To people, this choice would give further prestige to this office. There are however two sides to every story. One must study the evidence and the arguments fully. A close analysis of the choice raises many a question that must be addressed in the national interest. First and foremost, the constitutional position of President is a unifying post. The Presidency embodies and symbolises the unity of the nation. The President is the person who must be seen to be the unifying force in the country. It is this capacity to unite which is the acid test for eligibility to the post. The bottom line consideration remains whether Eddie Fenech Adami will be accepted by Labour Party followers as their President or not. We have our sincerest doubts whether Labour Party followers will be so magnanimous as to accept this person, who beat them in national elections on five occasions and who has over the years been their political adversary as well as a source of discomfort, not to use stronger words, as their President. One may argue that irrespective of the unease Labour followers may feel about this choice, the legal requirement simply allows the present Government, after approval from cabinet and after consultations with the Opposition, with its majority in parliament, to go ahead. It may be argued that Fenech Adami will surely rise to the occasion and put partisan politics behind him. After all this is the man who has placed national reconciliation as his political dream. There is little doubt that this course of action is open to Government but it would be unwise politically to simply bulldoze its way through. Neither would this be in keeping with Lawrence Gonzi's target to do politics differently. It may further polarise the country. The truth is that Dr Fenech Adami holds all the aces. He is in a position of total power and control. The choice to be or not to be is clearly his and his alone. It is most unlikely that the Prime minister-in-waiting will not accede to his wishes. Herein lies the cardinal test for the Prime Minister in spite of the position being his for the taking. Does he still go ahead with the intention of serving the country or does he himself acknowledge that, as a past leader of a political party, he is not in the best position to unify the country since there will always be a strong perception that he belongs to half the nation? Doubts must abound even in his mind. The matter becomes complicated further since the perception will develop that the new Prime Minister will operate in the shadow of the President. Many will read into this appointment that Fenech Adami will still be pulling the strings. It will take that much longer for the new head of Government to establish his own style and political persona. As such it is not in the interests of the new Prime Minister either that this goes ahead. Our choice remains firmly in favour of a person not chosen from the political class and less so from the ruling political party. Yes this would be a break with established convention since all former Presidents barring Prof Anthony Mamo were politicians. Surely this break is warranted if we really believe in doing politics differently. The political class surely can come up with the name of one integral and trustworthy person who commands the respect of the whole nation. Having a President acceptable to all would go a long way to starting to build a culture of national unity. To be or not to be EDITORIAL - MARCH 14 2004 Sensationalism in the media Mr Lino Spiteri has a go at re-writing history A Birdlife International news item concerning a CPEF grant to Lebanon to bring hunting under control (http://tinyurl.com/ q68jl39) carries a photograph of a dead Buzzard. This picture, which originally was taken by Graham Madge of the RSPB, was reportedly taken in Malta in 2008. It appeared on BBC News on 1 October, 2008, and has done the rounds of all international birding sites and media, as well as the local media (http://tinyurl. com/qaqtule) Lebanon has a despicable reputation for hunting atrocities that would surely not necessitate using a picture from 2008 of a bird allegedly shot in Malta. One wonders how often pictures of dead birds attributed to Maltese law breakers have been fake and whether pictures from different angles of the same dead birds have been repeatedly used by the media to accommodate the bad publicity the anti hunting lobby thrives on. David Borg Cardona Secretar y St Hubert's Hunters Lino Spiteri has refuted Eddie Fenech Adami 's allegation (in his recent biography) that the ex-Labour Finance Minister was among those who opposed Mr Mintoff 's views that another General Election be held in early 1982 to rectif y the skewed results of that held in 1981. There are one or two points that remain indelible on my mind about Mr Lino Spiteri 's stint as Finance Minister in the anni di piombo of the '80's. The lesser point, though it came later, was one of his budgets. He named that budget "Is-Sena ta' l-Impjiegi " (The Year of Jobs). By the time that budget had run its course a year later, unemployment in Malta had hit 10,000+, an all-time high. One must remember that the labour force then was much smaller than it is now by some 30,000, which meant that the figure of 10,000 seeking a job hovered above the 10% of the labour force. The other point that sticks in my mind as a sliver of bone sticks in one's throat is this. Less than a month after that Day of Infamy of 12 December, 1981, some 30 Labour Ministers and Backbenchers went on State- run TV, the National Broadcaster that had long since become nothing less than the Part y's main political organ, to give their views on the results of the General Election. It was an election in which a straight fight between two parties resulted in the part y polling more than 50% of the popular votes becoming the Parliamentary Opposition with three seats less than the Minorit y Labour Part y. Conspicuous in his absence was Mr Mintoff. Oh, yes, for all it's worth now, in that election I had voted Labour. The TV studio set consisted of two rows of chairs, on a split-level, and the Labour MP's trooped in, smirking from ear to ear. Each MP defended the skewed result with a grin that must have gone straight through the hearts of the majorit y of the Maltese electorate. Each defended the result as complying with the law of the land. That was the night the lights went out in Malta, when being legalistic overruled being democratic. Among that night's leading lights was Malta's current eminence grise, Mr Lino Spiteri. His smirk, as he regurgitated what his brothers-in-arms had spewed out before him, was as endearing as theirs. That night I could not help but fix my gaze on those rows of chairs and conjure up images of a gallery - a rogues' gallery alternating into a shooting- gallery-in-reverse. Mr Spiteri, the dictum of a good writer of short stories, as you are, is: "Re-write, Re-write and Re- write. And when you've finished re-writing, re-write again." Do your readers and the rest of Malta's electorate a favour and stick to re-writing only your short stories. Do not try re-writing history. You have always given the impression that you are very much your own man. Why weren't you man enough to repeat in public what you alleged in your regular Sunday column of another paper? You were man once enough to go against the prevailing current in your Cabinet, so you say. Granted you were not man enough to do that in public. But couldn't you have been man enough and refused to take part in that TV programme that night, the night the lights went out in Malta? You were man enough to have advised Mintoff (after stepping down as PM) to go curl up in some corner and write his memoirs. He didn't because he couldn't. He knew that to do so meant re-writing history. For Mintoff may have hit many highs in his time. And many lows. But none so low as to try re- writing history. Joe Genovese B'Kara An art auction at the Vatican "Classic art expected to fetch mil- lions," reported the media on 30 Jan- uary. Imagine the millions that Pope Francis could raise for the desperate poor that he's always preaching about if he had to hold an auction of some of the surplus art and antiques in the Vatican museums! He could start by auctioning a few pagan sculptures of male and female nudes, such as the Apollo Belvedere, the Venus Felix, the Hermes of Prax- iteles or the Laocoön. These pagan nudes do not belong in a museum of a Christian institu- tion, especially when one recalls God's stern prohibition against "graven images". When Pope Francis went to As- sisi in October, he said: "This is a good occasion to invite the Church to strip itself of worldliness." The Church could take the first step towards that goal by selling some of the art that it has accumulated through the centuries. Arguments about holding on to the Church's "patrimony" are incompatible with the teachings of Jesus, who told his disciples not hoard treasure on earth. So far, the Pope's commitment to the spirit of poverty has been limited to token gestures and lofty speeches. He pontificates against greed and "the globalization of indifference". Meanwhile, the Vicar of Christ presides over a Church that owns immeasurable wealth in real estate, investments and art, contrary to the teachings of Jesus. John Guillaumier St Julian's YOUR FIRST CLICK OF THE DAY www.maltatoday.com.mt