The recent launch of Momentum, as well as the announcement by others, has created quite a debate on the necessity and roles of third parties. Many are seeing the possibility of effective third voices in a stagnant political duopoly scenario as a godsend for the country.

So many good ideas coming from third voices have been systematically binned by the dominating political duo, intent on preserving their 59-year-old hegemony. The losers in such binning exercise have been the country and the Maltese people.

On the other hand, those who want to maintain the status quo, where only PL/PN ideas and initiatives are to be reckoned with, have resorted to the usual scaremongering tactics, with their major (yawn yawn) argument being that a third party in parliament and/or government will only bring instability to the running of the country. “Just look at what happens in Italy and Israel”, they will tell you, “governments falling every three months because of third parties.” In reality, this is a flawed argument.

In the EU, 25 out of 27 countries – Malta and Hungary are the exceptions – are run by coalition governments. Despite any problems arising from contrasting views between governing parties, history and reality have shown us that these countries have forged ahead with regard to the general well-being of their populations.

For example, Italy, where governments are supposed to collapse every few weeks, is one of the world’s leading economies and, last year, presided over the G7 – the seven most important industrialised nations in the Western world.

These same scaremongers try to present Malta as a paragon of excellence in the world, where our two-party parliament gives life to the most stable government in the universe. Nothing is so far removed from the truth and it is about time that this two-party stability myth is debunked.

Do people realise that, in the past 25 years Maltese single party governments have been characterised by regular instability? Putting aside all the scaremongers’ rhetoric, do we realise that, in the past 25 years, four governments, I repeat, four, did not end their natural five-year term because of the instability that forced them to close shop ahead of time?

Let me recap. In 1996, the Maltese people freely elected Alfred Sant to the post of prime minister. This single party government was supposed to last 1,825 days. Instead, Sant only managed to complete 678 days of his mandate. Why? Because backbencher Dom Mintoff voted against in the vote of confidence in the Sant government. Maybe some have not yet realised but Mintoff was a Labour MP. It was he, not a third-party MP, that voted against his own government.

We will vote against harmful agreements but we will afterwards vote ‘yes’ in a vote of confidence- Arnold Cassola

Fast forward to 2013. This time, Lawrence Gonzi, from the PN, was prime minister. Even here, though much nearer the natural term of office, the government ended up being toppled by one of its own. This time it was PN backbencher Franco Debono who voted against the budget proposed by his party leader and prime minister on December 10, 2012.

The Times of Malta had entitled its story, ‘Budget rejected as Debono votes with the opposition’. The sub-title read: “The Budget was defeated this evening, with Franco Debono, as promised, joining the opposition to vote ‘no’” Prime minister Gonzi’s term was over and the MP to bring him down was not a third-party MP but a member of the party that was supposed to constitute a stable one-party government.

Nearer our days, it might be easier for readers to recall what happened. A few days after the appointment of Joseph Muscat as prime minister in a fully democratic election held on March 11, 2013, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi and the unknown Mr/Ms/Dr Egrant illegally opened their secret companies in Panama. Nobody knew anything about them. It was Daphne Caruana Galizia who uncovered their dirt in February 2017 and Muscat was forced to hold an early election… and not because of a third party in parliament.

The second Muscat government lasted much less. Voted in on June 3, 2017, Muscat was forced to resign in disgrace by the end of December 2019 because of all the filth hovering around the Caruana Galizia assassination. Again, this government instability was not caused by a third party in parliament but by the corruption and filth of Muscat’s single party administration.

So, there you are. They use these past governments as an example of the stability supposedly associated with one party governments.

Well, do not fear. Momentum in parliament and/or government will be a guarantee for stability. We will always vote for the budget. We will vote against harmful agreements, like the recent Chambray one, but we will immediately afterwards vote ‘yes’ in a vote of confidence.

However, if the PN in government were to become as corrupt and dirty as the Muscat and Abela administrations, we would certainly not be an accomplice to this rot.

The interests of our country and people come first.

Arnold Cassola is chairperson of Momentum.