The consensus tango

Frank Salt struck a sensitive chord with his clarion call for "a political consensus" in his Talking Point (September 23).

As Parliament has just reconvened, the political tug-of-war will resume in earnest and although the democratic cut and thrust will no doubt be deemed essential to keep the government on the qui vive, it is equally essential for our politicians to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The opposition should, by all means, be free to monitor the performance of the Executive and to act as watchdog of the public interest. But the public interest demands that the opposition would have a viable channel for its constructive and positive input. If such a channel existed, it would be possible to define an area where consensus could be reached and practised.

Consensus implies an agreed basis for cooperation. It implies that in this case, the government and the opposition would come to a meeting of minds and to work together in pursuit of defined objectives. Once an agreement is reached, such objectives would be considered as national policy and both sides would be able to claim merit for the results.

In a highly polarised environment such as Malta, politicians pay lip service to consensus by calling for "dialogue". In practice, the end result is a dialogue of the deaf.

It takes two to tango but it takes one to take the initiative and bid the partner to move to the dance floor. In this case, the initiative has to come from the government side. The Executive is responsible for policy and its execution and, if it really is interested in trimming its sails in the interest of consensus, it has to get round to agreeing with the opposition on a given set of objectives where both sides could work in harmony.

In this connection, verbal appeals for consensus lead nowhere unless they take the form of a concrete proposal with positive and attainable objectives. Such objectives have to be acceptable to the opposition and agreement implies discussion and mutual accommodation before it is reached.

Mr Salt produced his formula. He wrote as follows:

"The Prime Minister mentioned the environment, pensions, tourism and ports and health: to this I would add the presently anti-social rent laws. All these subjects are of national interest and should be treated as a national exercise involving all parties.

"To show good faith, bring in opposition members to help the government organise and solve these very important subjects in a truly politically cooperative way."

It does not seem to me that it is as simple as that. In the absence of a formal government initiative, the first approaches have to be behind the scene by bridge-builders who may bring representatives of the two sides together. The latter will establish the areas where the two sides could work together in pursuit of common aims. To the extent that this could lead to eventual consensus, both sides would be the winners and there would be no losers.

One side or the other may have strong views on a particular topic (e.g the Maghtab problem) but would otherwise be willing to cooperate all along the line to expedite measures leading to clean air and pollution-free bays. They may agree to disagree on the merits and demerits of the Connections Project but they could agree to cooperate on most issues that will make Malta more competitive and a more attractive destination.

If such an agreement is hammered out the respective political parties could then proceed to formalise the accord and thereby reduce the area where they will continue to contrast each other and offer their respective alternative policies for electoral approval.

In this way, life would go on with the traditional political gusto, which, after all, is vital for the democratic health of the Maltese body politic, without impairing our national economic and other interests.

Heaven knows that there is much too much to be done to put the government's finances to rights, to give momentum to our ailing economy, to maximise our opportunities on accession to the EU and to upgrade the top managerial rungs of our bureaucracy.

In all these areas, debate and contestation are legitimate, indeed desirable in the interests of transparency, accountability and open government. The wider the agreement between the government and the opposition to harmonise their policies in pursuit of the national interest, the more they will have time to argue on the issues that call for the concentrated attention of both parties.