Avoiding the future

None of us will ever forget the last few minutes of the PN leader's speech closing the 2003 election campaign. To thousands of PN supporters it was completely baffling. For years before, the PN and AD had campaigned in tandem for Malta's EU membership. The Greens' contribution had been significant giving depth to a stakeholder consultation process which Labour had boycotted. The final meeting of constituted bodies and NGOs closing the EU referendum campaign was a historical political watershed in which civil society had overcome its enforced neutrality and stood up to be counted. It had gained for itself a new freedom. The Greens had contributed significantly to this process by lending their presence and enthusiasm for it thus alleviating the difficulty civil society would have had to join a one-party alliance.

Once it was over, Greens were trimmed out of the souvenir photographs. The Luxol speech was not a complete surprise: No trick is too dirty for traditional politicians. It was half expected but still it was mind blowing to have such deliberate deception delivered with such determination. It had been kept for a time when no response could be made.

Once the PN had rejected the Greens' invitation to an electoral alliance, it was clear that the PN would move in for the kill. In fact the alliance invitation was a ritual through which the Greens made it crystal clear that they had done their utmost to avoid endangering the EU membership bid by contesting the election separately and siphoning off any No. 1 votes from the Yes-to-EU camp. The bonus was an offer from the PN during these negotiations to have a Green co-opted to Parliament if the Greens did not contest the election - the post of Speaker was offered. The leader would make a speech recognising the Greens' magnanimity and co-opt one. I had replied refusing the offer and saying that he would be best advised not to make that speech since it would reveal his own lack of magnanimity in preventing Greens from exercising their basic political rights. Magnanimity? We saw his at Luxol.

Representation was not the PN's to give. We are not called Alternattiva Demokratika for nothing. Nothing could persuade us to enter Parliament on votes polled for another party. We had done our utmost, we had scrupulously asked for nothing in return during the alliance negotiations. We had bent over backwards to avoid contesting the election separately. Left with no choice by the PN refusal, we did not just lie down and die as they must have hoped we would. We devised a campaign in which we clearly pointed our support in the direction of the other Yes-to-EU party. We repaid ingratitude with generosity. We had billboards across the country reminding voters that the No. 2 vote would do. It worked. Our No. 1 vote result was the lowest on record.

What the PN knew was that, while not threatening the overall result, the Greens could be elected on just the No. 2 vote particularly in the Eighth District where huge surpluses were generated from the massive No. 1 votes going to the other parties' leaders contesting there. It was possible. The Luxol speech was aimed at eliminating that last possibility of representation for the Greens for the first time in 13 years, not at averting any danger to EU membership. Any vote to the Greens was made out to have catastrophic consequences. It was extraordinary. It was bewildering. The PN leader cashed in and squandered all his credibility. He won in the short term. Once the vote was over, people had time to think. It was too late at that point. His smile seemed to ask them: "Ever been had?"

My comment after that election was that the PN had won without honour and that the Greens had won people's hearts if not their votes. Hearts and votes came together in the EP elections one year later. We had the best qualified candidate and the most experienced. And just one candidate. He achieved a resounding success: 9.3 per cent of the vote placing Alternattiva Demokratika as the fifth in rank among European Green parties. Then too the PN tried to avoid the future, first by a failed smear campaign on abortion and then by the counterproductive block vote.

By their failure to exercise a ninth preference after the eighth and last PN candidate, PN voters allowed their surplus vote to go to waste. It would have ensured the election of Arnold Cassola if they had expressed a last preference for a Yes-to-EU candidate who started in the race with a poll far ahead of many others.

The exceptional unanimity achieved by our two adversaries over the changes to election district boundaries this week speaks volumes. There is no way that the violently dismembered districts, particularly Gozo, could possibly be acceptable to the PN without some confidential arrangement having been made to neutralise its effect.

In the tripartite talks held so far on the subject, the dismemberment of parts of Gozo was agreed to be unacceptable to all three parties. Overnight, it has become no problem at all for our adversaries. The talks were about how best to achieve strict proportionality avoiding all perverse results. There was talk about establishing a National Quota system with a threshold imposed on newcomers. It appears that after the abrupt end of the tripartite talks all obstacles have been overcome and our adversaries are about to present the country with a fait accompli far beyond the district boundary truce.

In a country where the goalposts are set on wheels, nothing could ever surprise us except a glimmer of democratic sentiment, something that truly expresses the will of the people. We have had Labour proposing an electoral system in which the next government could enjoy a majority of seats in parliament with a minority of 47 per cent of the vote. We have heard the PN propose an electoral threshold of 7.5 per cent regardless of the fact that they have spent the last decade blaming Labour for the collapse of the 1995 reforms in which they Proposed a five per cent threshold. Their detachment from the feeling within the country is simply awesome.

They seem to dismiss the fact that 25 per cent of those entitled to vote either did not vote for them or voted Green in 2004; 55,000 people said no to old style politics as recently as 2004. In a country where absolute power changes hands on slivers of one to two per cent, it was a political earthquake. Many seem to have rejected the system altogether. Recent Eurobarometer results show support for EU membership nose diving to 40 per cent just when the two parties in Parliament approved the EU Constitution treaty above the heads of their support, regardless of the No vote in France and the Netherlands and without a whisper about consulting the people in a referendum. They seem to be out there all on their own.

This is our political reality. Our political leadership is going further and further out on a limb increasing the general disgust with shameless undemocracy and economic incompetence. The harder they try to avoid the future the closer they bring it to realisation. The Greens have earned their spurs.

We have convinced a very significant segment of the population that we have a valuable contribution to give to the country.

We have been consistent in providing an example of serious politics, time and again placing on the country's agenda crucial matters which our adversaries would have preferred to ignore. We have been fortunate in having been given the opportunity to demonstrate our willingness to sacrifice our legitimate aspirations of representation when the common good demanded it. We still have the country's heart. We continue to enjoy respect for our commitment far beyond the confines of those who have ever voted Green.

The future, our common future beckons regardless of all the tricks and chicanery. The country is tired of all the nonsense and will not tolerate any more. The future cannot be avoided forever.

Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - the Green Party.

www.alternattiva.org.mt

hcvassallo@kemmunet.net.mt