Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/429113
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2014 20 News MANY of them have been involved in politics from a young age. Few have tried their hand at militating outside the party structure in 'radi- cal' or environmental NGOs. When it comes to student leaders who find themselves in the belly of govern- ment, or even as MPs and ministers, there is one common denominator: the University Students' Council or as it is more commonly known by its Maltese abbreviation, the KSU (Kun- sill Studenti Università). A complete list of KSU members since its formation reveals the ex- tent to which former student council members launched themselves into a political career. Most prominent among them is Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil, who spent two years as a member of the KSU during the early 1990s. Elsewhere, Nationalist MPs George Pullicino, Claudette Buttigieg, Marthese Por- telli and Francis Zammit Dimech all cut their political teeth in the stu- dents' council, as did Alternattiva Demokrattika's deputy chairperson, Carmel Cacopardo, and auxiliary bishop Charles Scicluna. Further back in time, former Prime Ministers Sir Ugo Mifsud, George Borg Olivier and Dominic Mintoff, former President Guido de Marco, former foreign minister Alex Sce- berras Trigona and former tourism minister Michael Refalo were all members of the students' council. Indeed, Borg Olivier and Mintoff were actually members of the same students' council for two consecu- tive years. "There is no question that my in- volvement in the KSU helped me acquire a more complete forma- tion during my formative years at the University," Simon Busuttil told MaltaToday. "The KSU builds in you a strong sense of active citizenship. It was an experience that I have treas- ured throughout my adult life." It's not just political leaders who trace back their pedigree: Austin Gatt's right-hand man, Emanuel De- lia led the student protests against stipend cuts in 1997 with future Labour MP Deborah Schembri by his side; PN lawyer Joseph Zammit Maempel was a member of the 1966 committee; so was historian Henry Frendo in 1967, together with notary Victor Bisazza and Nationalist min- ister Michael Frendo, and European Court of Justice judge Anthony Borg Barthet (formerly Attorney General) Many were those KSU members who even before graduating, had one foot in the world of politics or even party journalism. And it is easy to establish that having a firm opin- ion about anything is probably also the reason why someone would run for KSU election. Organisational skills, dabbling in budgets, attending meetings with university top brass, assisting students, hunting down sponsorships, fighting unpopular government decisions: many KSU members are equipped with the kind of skill someone in government will look for. 'Party of students' But it's not only the glut of former KSU members in parties and govern- ment that is apparent; many political candidates spent some time at uni- versity as members of a party-affili- ated body, mainly Pulse and Studenti Demokristjani Maltin, the latter a successful electoral vehicle that has always triumphed in the KSU elec- tions. Even with the low turnouts on campus, the 'Nationalists' at uni- versity have held sway over student politics for decades, while Labour students have been unsuccessful at clinching KSU posts, perhaps suf- fering from the hangover of the re- lationship between intellectuals and the Labour government of the 1980s; perhaps, kept out due to the first- past-the-post electoral system. Labour candidate Ivan Buttigieg, who in 1997 co-founded the stu- dent organisation Pulse – like SDM, loosely-affiliated to a political party, in this case Labour, claims university students have been afraid of declar- ing their support for the Labour Party, explaining why SDM has nev- er lost a single university students' council (KSU) election. "The connection between the Na- tionalist Party and SDM exists in terms of their shared Christian dem- ocrat ideologies, just as the connec- tion between Labour and Pulse ex- ists in terms of their shared socialist ideologies," Buttigieg said. "I believe that the situation at the university re- flects the political situation in Malta on a micro-level. Now that Labour have managed to mobilise the youth, it will be interesting to see whether Pulse can manage to get elected to the KSU in future." And yet, while Labour has main- tained healthy polls ever since the election of Joseph Muscat as leader, this support rarely gets reflected on the university campus. In March 2014, the PN enjoyed a seven-point lead over the PL among university- educated voters; Labour however enjoyed a massive nine-point lead over the PN among 18- to 34-year- olds. And again, SDM triumphed in the 2014 KSU elections and actually obtained 4% more votes than they received the previous year. The indi- cation is that, despite its recent woes, the 'Nationalist' SDM has somehow managed to maintain its popularity among current university students. Former Pulse president Corey Greenland, until recently a deputy secretary-general of the General Workers Union, says the reason is down to having more Nationalist voters at university, perhaps hinting indirectly at the slow uptake of terti- A passport to politics? It's a familiar stepping stone into politics: many MPs, party executives and other apparatchiks share a history of KSU activism and are usually Nationalist… TIM DIACONO tries to find out why FIMBank p.l.c. is a licensed credit institution regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority and listed on the Malta Stock Exchange. The Bank is a participant in the Depositor Compensation Scheme in Malta. 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