'Problem' to mobilise core vote for EP elections

It has been a traumatic year for the Labour Party: it lost the referendum and the election and has since changed almost all its top people, from the deputy leaders to the administration. And, yet, party leader Alfred Sant has survived. Vanessa Macdonald found he was upbeat about both his and his party's future.

You were often accused of taking a stand against EU membership as a way to differentiate between the MLP and the Nationalist Party policies. I always argued that your stand was based on your personal conviction. If that is the case, then how could you now stay on as leader and betray your personal beliefs?

People have decided that they wanted Malta to join the EU at the election. In that context, the whole question is now how to defend the rights of the workers. The MLP is there to defend the rights of workers. We still exist as a party; we are still strong as a party. We now have to do our best to defend and promote workers' interests.

Yes, but I am talking about your personal belief. I can understand that the party can change its policy, as its followers can. But you personally?

I still think it was the wrong choice. But the choice has been taken. I am still alive, the party is still alive, the country is still alive and I am still determined to ensure that the MLP looks forward to defend the workers in this country.

A recent report by the Economist Intelligence Unit virtually described you as being the PN's best weapon, describing your "unpopularity" as an "advantage to the government which partially offsets the vote-losing effects of tough reforms". Are you comfortable with this description?

I used to write the EIU report myself, so I know how it is, and should be, put together.

So you are not worried and do not see it as a serious analysis.

It is an infantile analysis.

The European parliament elections in June are already being given a partisan slant, an indication of the political mood of the country rather than electing MEPs. How do you see the role of MEPs? Do you think they should be elected on a partisan basis?

That is what happens across the board, in most European countries. The European Socialist group in the European parliament has drafted a programme that reflects social democratic values.

Shouldn't MEPs be fighting for the good of Malta?

They will be fighting for the good of Malta but within the context of their social democratic principles, if they are Labour.

Only four candidates were approved by the MLP delegates for the elections. Is that a positive or negative thing?

That is a bit awkward. I would have been much happier with eight candidates. But the general conference delegates decided that and it is only the conference which can change that.

Perhaps it indicates that the delegates were thinking quite hard about who they wanted to represent them.

Yes, but they were also reflecting about how to profile our posture in the election. I would have preferred eight candidates to be frank.

Was the 70 per cent (of delegates' vote) too high a criterion?

I would guess so, yes. That criterion was set because in the general election it is 60 per cent. But for the general election, there are candidates for just one constituency while for the European parliament you have just one national constituency. So from a logical point of view, it made sense to have 70 per cent. In retrospect, it was too tough.

Is there any discussion on whether this should be reviewed?

There is some discussion but that is still in the process of being looked at.

So it is possible that this might change before the elections in June?

I can't make any forecast.

(The interview was conducted before the MLP announced that a general conference would be convened to debate the possibility of fielding more EP candidates.)

The MLP's internal report on its electoral defeat was never published even though the original intention seems to have been for at least the conclusions to be released.

No.

That is what (former MLP general secretary) Jimmy Magro told me. Why not? Wouldn't that have been the perfect time for transparency?

The intention was for it to be discussed by the national executive. After all, it relates to decision-making within the party. It was left for the national executive and the parliamentary group to reflect on it and discuss it.

Wouldn't the delegates want to know what the processes were?

No, it is like an internal board decision, so you reflect about it in terms of the decision-makers, who were appointed by the delegates.

And have you had any feedback from delegates as to whether they are satisfied with this?

Some of them would like to see it, some of them were satisfied with the way things are.

And the ones that wanted to see it - have they been allowed to?

Only if they are on the national executive. Otherwise, no.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Magro accused members of the national executive of keeping quiet when matters like electoral tactics were being discussed. Yet, you always try to portray the party as one in which there is healthy discussion.

Yeah, if people don't speak out, they don't speak out. At all times, all the subjects are up for discussion.

But if they do not speak out openly it could imply either that they feel it would be pointless or that they feel it could backfire on their own ambitions.

Well, that is just speculation. If there is an institution which puts things on an agenda and you are allowed to speak up but don't... how can you speculate on why people don't speak?

Of course you must speculate because at the end of the day if you don't get that input, the party cannot grow and develop.

But the party is growing and developing.

Only by going through a total crisis.

Losing the election was a total crisis, of course.

So if people had spoken up about your electoral tactics, such as your boycott, the EU...

There was discussion all the time. If they didn't speak up it was because they agreed with the position.

No, as they are now saying in retrospect that they did not speak up.

In all the time that we were working on the EU question, only at one point - by one person - was it raised that we should consider membership.

And no one else agreed?

No one else raised the matter publicly or privately.

Deputy Leader Charles Mangion described the 18-month boycott against Where's Everybody? as one of the "biggest mistakes" in the last four years. Even Mr Magro was against it. Yet, you stayed out on a limb, making matters worse by boycotting l-Istrina. Do you feel any remorse?

Oh, I think it has been exaggerated as an issue.

These were Dr Mangion's words...

We can't have made so many big mistakes if he said that this was one of the biggest. There are other bigger mistakes in my view, like allowing the government to run its propaganda machine by spending millions of public money.

But perhaps that is why Dr Mangion saw the Where's Everybody? boycott as a big issue: you had the chance to balance out this propaganda by reaching a huge audience and you lost it.

We didn't lose it on that basis. It was not a big issue.

You also had to swallow all you have said in the past and take part in l-Istrina. How did that feel?

I've taken part in l-Istrina before. I still think it is an occasion which is slanted psychologically and socially. It is still a manipulative exercise and charity should not be premised on manipulation.

You saw the programme: there were hours and hours of fundraising which collected over Lm1 million. Do you honestly believe there was a partisan slant in the programme?

Do you honestly believe that the Lm1 million would not have been given over the year? Shouldn't we ask whether the fact that l-Istrina collected Lm1 million reduces the charitable donations for other beneficiaries?

My feedback is that other organisations did not get as much money over the year from the usual sources.

Look, I am not for or against l-Istrina. I did not go to l-Istrina in the past for specific reasons. This time, my friends and colleagues said: "We are going. Why shouldn't you go to?" and I said I would go. It is a non-issue.

You are trying to make it sound like a non-issue. But you actually had Labour MPs who defied the boycott, whether it was official or not...

I was one of those who was not in favour of a boycott but the majority of the party wanted it. I said people should be able to go or not go - but I would not go. And the majority of people on the national executive and the parliamentary group said let us decide whether everybody or nobody goes.

And some people anyway defied the decision and went...

Yes, it happened.

Delegates at the November general conference warmly applauded European Socialist Jan Marius Wiersma when he reassured them about the benefits of EU membership. Yet, these were the same delegates who agreed to take a stand against it in the election. What happened in between?

He made the speech and we applauded him. What is wrong with that?

Had he made the same speech in March, before the referendum, would they still have applauded him? I got the impression they liked the message that he was giving them, reassuring them about neutrality and Malta's potential to grow within the EU... It is one thing saying that the mood of the country has changed, that the election has been lost and that the party must move on, but for the delegates to change their minds within just a few months, after having voted against the EU... It is very pragmatic.

If it is pragmatic, there is nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, this was the first time we had a statement from a socialist politician saying that they would stand by our neutrality, which we didn't have in the past.

Had you ever asked for such a reassurance?

Of course, they used to say it would "come out in the wash..."

So you are saying that if Mr Wiersma had come in March and said the same thing, that the MLP could have changed its policy and the delegates could have voted differently?

No, I am not saying that. You need to accept what has gone on in this country. On balance, the MLP always said that membership was not the best option for Malta. People have decided that it is the best option - so we have to accept the reality. And within this new reality, you have to see what is the best way forward. What is wrong with that? It is normal.

In retrospect, would it not have been wiser to bring him over after the referendum? Many observers still believe that you could have had a shot at the general election had you changed your EU stance...

Pie in the sky. We would have lost by an even bigger margin because we would have lost core voters who would have been completely disgusted with that approach.

We still have problems trying to get people to vote now for the European parliament. Our problem is mobilising that core vote because quite a substantial number just do not want to vote.

What kind of discussion was there on this between the referendum and the EU? Surely there must have been a lot of pressure to change?

No, there was not.

Is it because no one spoke up?

It is because all those who spoke up were in favour of moving forward to the election.

But had you accepted the results of the referendum, would you not have been able to attract the voters who were disgruntled by the Nationalist government?

No.

Is that an opinion based on research?

It is based on research and on a reality. Even now we have problems convincing our core voters to vote in the European parliament. There are still a number of voters who still need to be convinced that this is the best way forward. And that the best way forward is not to say: Let's get out of the EU.

And you have polls to prove that you would have lost more than you gained?

I don't say we have polls, but we analysed everything we went through.

What exactly were the compromises that the MLP made in its motion on the EU to accommodate Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici's motion? It seems very little was given up and that even that little was just done to get him off your back...

We just came up with the text. There was no backroom dealing.

But there were hardly any changes to the text.

That is my reading of it. A text is a text, is a text.

So basically, Dr Mifsud Bonnici just gave up and tried to make it seem as though...

I am not making any comments. I am just saying that the text is the text...

How are you going to turn things around in the next four years and appeal to both floating voters and your core voters?

It won't be difficult, frankly, to convince people that what we need is to get things moving in this country and that the EU is an issue that needs to be looked at. You need to change what is wrong with the agreement: The bad effects you try to contain and the positive effects you try to bring forward and spread around.

There are many other issues besides EU membership to be tackled over the next four years, many of them very important, like the economy.

The economy has been an issue for the last few years but it was totally ignored by the government. It got membership of the EU but the economy is not performing and we are now paying the price for this.

You are basing your current campaign on the slogan Unemployment, Taxes and Debt. You are also saying that you will take to the streets. It sounds very militant.

It is militant because people are losing their jobs, their security.

How far does militant go, Dr Sant?

We have been through a militant phase in the past and we will go through it again. Between 1992 and 1996 we worked quite hard on a certain mobilisation, which was quite important.

So you are talking about militant in the sense of protests, not in the sense of any civil disobedience campaign...

Protests, street protests, demonstrations... to show that there is a certain way of doing things that is not the way of the present government. People are becoming aware of the fact that they are being short-changed: by the media, by the government, by the institutions. They were given a vision and that vision has not really been working out. They want real decisions to be taken, which preserve the idea of compassion, forward looking action and that defend the interests of the mass of people and not just of a few cliques.

There are many changes coming up within the PN - appointments to Brussels, a new President, etc - there seems to be a strong element of competition between people in the party. Do you feel that this is distracting them from taking decisions on the economy?

Perhaps. But really they have a dearth of talent. They just don't have people who can deliver. For example, look at the same guys who have been running the same corporations. The same guys who have been running the ministries. Can they deliver? They haven't so far. For example, controlling the budget: It has just been one process of creative accounting and now everything is falling apart at the seams. Look at the corporations, all the stuff that Austin Gatt spewed out in parliament: We have been tackling this since 1998. Lots of reports had come out and we were trying to get back to square one. They just don't have enough good guys, just a lot of fluff, a lot of PR, a lot of good contacts in the media...

In the last legislature, you heaped scorn on everyone from the President to EU Commissioner Guenther Verheugen, but it didn't seem to get you anywhere. Are we going to see a less confrontational Alfred Sant for the rest of this legislature?

I disagree that it did not get us anywhere.

It did not get you into government...

No, but it got 47 per cent of the vote, against all the odds. And in the referendum only 48 per cent voted for the EU, so it wasn't too bad. It could have been better, of course.

Also the confrontation did not start from us, but from the other side. For example, Mr Verheugen told George Vella he would do everything for the MLP not to win the election. So it was not just one-sided.

By the end of the year, we will definitely have a new President, probably a new Archbishop and, possibly, a new Prime Minister. What do you think will be the effect of all these changes in such a short space of time?

Frankly, I think that what we need are structural changes. I don't think that the people matter so much. At the moment it is not the people who define policy but the structures will.

And there are structural deficiencies in tourism, in industry. So the people at the very top are not as important as a group of decision-makers, no matter who led by, who can have a cohesive approach. And the present government is not in a position to come up with this approach.

But people seem to be so distracted by the changes, that no one is taking the decisions that need to be taken. They are posturing to put their own agenda forward.

Given the structural position we are in, they would have problems coming up with a cohesive approach.

Even with the way that we look at competitiveness. They have got themselves into a situation where there is not much margin in which to boost competitiveness.

And this is across the board. And they have no new ideas on how to solve this. Look at the hospital project, which has been stagnant for so long. Why is it that every time this government has a bid, it must get into this loop of going backwards and forwards...?

Speed cameras - they got tied up with that.

These people are working all the time on a "friends of friends" basis and they want their friends to get the contracts. And if it doesn't happen, then the whole thing gets into a loop, going round and round.

Why has tourism stayed in limbo for so long? It is so important it should have top management and top government commitment. All you get is first Michael Refalo and now Francis Zammit Dimech and at the top, nobody seems to care.

Look at the loops over the Malta Development Corporation, the Institute for the Promotion of Small Enterprise and the Malta External Trade Corporation. It has taken two years to restructure them and now they say they have done it. But it didn't solve any problems. And how are they going to get out of that - is there any way? No. Because they have no ideas.

There are a number of commissions which should have tackled this issue of competitiveness, like the port reform commission, which has also been on the cards for years, and years and years. Do you think it will be too late anyway to turn things around?

You don't solve things by commissions. You create quangos and they don't get you anywhere. There should be long-term, top management, inter-ministerial committees to change things. It doesn't have to start with the port.

Look at the structural problems that we have. Much of our electronic exports are based in US dollars, whose exchange rate is going down and down. What is going to happen there? Should devaluation be addressed? Should some other way be addressed? But to be tied to the eurozone, as we have to be, is going to limit the margins within which we can manoeuvre.

Economist Edward Scicluna recently argued that the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development should have a bigger role. He also said MCESD could have tackled port and welfare reform.

Two years ago, I was invited to a seminar by MCESD - the point I made was why doesn't the MCESD work on policy papers? The prime minister was there and he said they could do this as there was a provision in the law for this. So my question is: Why did this not happen? They could have come out with policy papers for different areas, all jointly discussed and agreed. This would have provided them with the mandate on which the executive could have moved forward.

We have spoken about all the other changes: Will we have a new leader of the opposition? You have lost two elections and will never be able to go back to finish off what you started in 1996. When will it be time to admit defeat?

There is never a time to admit defeat.

Can you name any other politician in the world who has stayed on and won despite two electoral defeats?

Churchill, de Gaulle, Mitterand, Chirac, Mintoff, Nixon ...

So you still feel there is a chance for you to win an election?

A very good chance.