MLP reluctant to change

Events within the Labour camp since April 13 seem quite worrying and astonishing.

As soon as the first projections gave a clear indication of the outcome of the election, Dr Alfred Sant, accompanied by his deputies, Dr George Vella and Dr Joe Brincat, appeared on Super One TV and sombrely conceded defeat.

From that very moment, Labour's leadership failed to appear compatible with the stunning electoral defeat and paved the way for various predictions regarding all those most likely to substitute Dr Sant and his team. At one point Dr John Attard Montalto had the courage to express openly his aspiration to be among the candidates for the new MLP leadership. Eventually, Dr Angelo Farrugia also announced his candidacy.

Such developments were considered merely as the most natural consequences in the ranks of the Opposition party that is still trying to come to grips with a most devastating and traumatic defeat.

But what happened on May Day was an incredible and unprecedented farce! First and foremost, Labour's demonstration in Valletta became an evidently paradoxical pretext to show support for Dr Sant's leadership of the party.

I say "paradoxical" because it is absolutely absurd to organise an artificial demonstration in support of a leader who, despite his umpteenth personal defeat, initially declared he is no longer interested in keeping his post, and eventually, after coming under "pressure" to reconsider his decision, stated that he has had second thoughts!

Labour supporters in Valletta on May Day were "instructed" to show their loyalty to their leader by carrying placards making a dramatic (!) appeal, namely that both the MLP and Malta needed Dr Sant!

Indeed, what a sharp contrast between reality and what happened in the Labour tragi-comic demonstration! Dr Sant simply does not have the necessary qualities that make him indispensable both as leader of his party as well as leader of the Opposition. The MLP truly deserves a decidedly better leader, such as Dr George Abela or Dr Attard Montalto, whose fundamental duty would be to help Labour regain its credibility. And our country really deserves a serious, responsible and honest Opposition, with excellent democratic credentials.

Therefore, the MLP cannot ignore the circumstances in which both the referendum and the election have been lost and must make a courageous and genuine effort to find an appropriate solution to its present crisis.

Dr Sant's change of mind is not surprising at all, since it has been anticipated by Tony Zarb's second thoughts regarding his "resignation" as general secretary of the GWU. When will the leadership of the MLP as well as that of its faithful puppet, the GWU, become really accountable for its enormous mistakes? Nobody has pretended that Labour becomes another Nationalist Party, but every citizen of goodwill and of sound moral values rightly expects that the "miracle" of an authentic clean sweep within the MLP materialises, without the recourse to a pilgrimage to Lourdes!

It is equally absurd that while Dr Sant has expressed his intention to remain leader of his party, he has "exhorted" all those who are interested in the leadership of the MLP to contest the election! Do such candidates have any chance to be elected, if the Leader is now quite sure that he should continue to conduct the show?!

Unfortunately, the MLP seems to remain stubbornly reluctant to change. If this attitude continues to prevail throughout the next legislature, then there will be an inevitable Hobson's choice, namely that the Nationalist government, despite all its shortcomings, would necessarily be confirmed in power and, at the same time, that the MLP would deserve the most humiliating electoral defeat in its history.