In the shadow

It is a toss between curiosity and speculation what is most striking - whether to whom did the Opposition Leader allocate shadow portfolios, or why he took so inordinately long to carry out that basic task. Basic does not by any means mean simple or uncomplicated. Portfolios are all about responsibility. Yet first and foremost they are about people. Whoever appoints is bound to disappoint.

The current party leaders know that well enough through practical exper-ience, both in Opposition as well as when they hold office. An incoming prime minister has to weigh various factors when selecting his Cabinet. Though he may - and generally does - consult his senior colleagues and the top officials in his party, the final choice is his and his alone, and similarly the responsibility that goes with it.

In his deliberations he has to take into account ability and seniority, electoral achievement and standing, and how many years of good service are left in any particular appointee.

Cabinets are a blend of management and political skills, targeted to the present but with an eye on the future. The future lies in the various stages of an electoral term. These could lead up to a reshuffle depending on performance, both of the selected ministers as well as of their shadows. The future lies too in the inevitability of the next election, which is a gleam in a prime minister's eye as he basks in the satisfaction of the immediate victory.

The gleam is there even if a prime minister knows, as the one currently in office does, that he is enjoying his last hurrah.

The task of a Leader of the Opposition is, if anything, tougher than that of his adversary in the prime ministerial seat. Fresh from the chastening emptiness of defeat, especially if it happens largely due to errors of judgment or perhaps caprice on his part - failings, these, which followers will not easily forget, no matter how much they might continue to sing out hosannas in public - an Opposition Leader has to freshen up his image and that of his parliamentary troop.

Other than in Malta, defeated party leaders tend to announce their resignation the moment the election result is clear, sometimes not bothering to wait for it to be officially declared. Thereby they make it easier for their successor to pick a new blend, in the hope of better performance against the government side, with an early eye on the subsequent election.

When a beaten leader hangs on to his job, he cannot effect sweeping changes with any moral right and dignity, since to change drastically would beg the question why had he himself remained glued so grimly to his own position.

Still, once a beaten leader manages to set dignity aside, the cold thinking process has to take over. He (no she in sight over here, not just yet anyhow) has to detach himself from his own uneasy clothes and seek to dress up his shadow cabinet in the hope that its members can cut a better figure than their opponents on the government benches.

This time round it was easily predictable that the reconfirmed leader of the Opposition would go for a mix of consolidation and change, or at least what passes as such. The Prime Minister, by reappointing so many well-worn and tired faces to his 'new' Cabinet, made that prediction and task easy enough.

What was not at all predictable, and was in fact outright astonishing, was how the Opposition Leader would throw off his perch his number two colleague, the former deputy leader for parliamentary affairs. George Vella had carried out his role as foreign affairs spokesman, as well as his stint as foreign minister, with aplomb.

He mastered his brief early on and steadily expanded on it. Anyone who disagreed with the party position on the EU, which Dr Vella as its main spokesman articulated with clarity and determination, could not claim to do so on account of the singer.

As it was to turn out so unambiguously, the song did not become popular enough. Voters turned it down. The referendum aside, electors left not a shadow of a doubt where democratic majority feeling lay.

When Alfred Sant, as party leader and the main lyricist of the non-membership song, had declared that - no matter how much one continued to believe in the defeated policy - someone had to be held accountable, it would have been perfectly natural for his deputy colleague to accompany him to the back benches.

Once the leader changed his mind about that, and stayed on, it was just as natural that his deputy leader should stay on with him.

It remains one of the most intriguing of contemporary political incidents, therefore, why Dr Sant, apparently even before he was reconfirmed as leader by the Labour Party's general conference, decided to jettison and discard Dr Vella from foreign affairs.

Thereby, the blunt impression transmitted was that the responsibility for the failure and rejection of the non-membership Labour stand was placed on him, as if he had been the sole singer of a song he alone had authored and set to music.

Dr Vella's decision not to contest again for deputy leader led to a strong forecast from various quarters that he would not accept any position in the shadow cabinet. That did not mean he would speak out of turn, as he amply demonstrated in subsequent interventions in Malta and abroad, incidentally all on foreign affairs.

It indicated that he would be devoting himself much more than hitherto to pursuits of a non-political nature.

The way he has now featured in the Opposition Leader's list of shadow spokesman reeled out volumes, without Dr Vella having uttered a single word. Dr Sant made him his "special" consultant, without clarifying the mystifying implication that there were other unnamed consultants who were not so special, and without indicating what was to be "special" in the role.

The Opposition Leader also designated his former deputy as "senior Labour delegate to the European Parliament". I seriously wonder whether enough thought was given as to how this projected a man of his standing.

There are two "delegates" (observers, really) to the European Parliament. Dr Vella is senior to the other one appointed by the Opposition Leader, John Attard Montalto, by virtue of the political past of the two, and the positions each held. In any event, both of them hold that position only until the European Parliament election takes place next year.

What happens then cannot be forecast now. The quaint appellations pegged by Dr Sant to Dr Vella's political garb do suggest that, as rumour had it, the former deputy leader insisted to the end he would accept no position in the shadow cabinet.

Is that why the Opposition Leader, who is not a man to delay preparing the script for the next act, was so late in announcing the shadow cabinet? Whatever the reason, it was unlikely that nobody would note that there was such a long gap, though it must have included consultations.

When, finally the gap was bridged, it possibly raised more questions than it answered.

In addition to the Opposition Leader, at least 11 MPs remained well-linked to their pre-election positions - at tourism, industry, justice, health, public works, Gozo, home affairs, agriculture, social policy (albeit in an oddly fragmented manner, especially given the importance of the unfolding debate on pensions), and women's rights.

The early decision to shift George Vella from foreign affairs became more significant in that context, especially since no place was found in the same area for the MP who had been a well-tuned second string in it.

Now that the appointees as spokespersons have emerged from the weeks-long shadow of uncertainty, they will no doubt get going with vigour. The quality of the late blend will be judged by the performance of its components.

Five years is a long slog. It is unlikely that, this time round, there will not be periodical reshuffling of positions. That is likely to take place both on the government front bench as well as in the Opposition shadow cabinet.