Before the general election, former Labour MP Oliver Scicluna had publicly declared he was “offended” every time people approached to offer him their vote in return for a favour.
Scicluna was a capable MP who had been handpicked by Robert Abela for co-option to parliament. His failure to get elected points indirectly to the power of clientelism, which was manifest too at the macro level: the huge margin by which the Labour Party won is partly a reflection of its vote-buying efforts facilitated through its power of incumbency.
Former Labour MP Luciano Busuttil admitted the culture of clientelism was one of the reasons he quit politics. Former justice minister Edward Zammit Lewis once told Yorgen Fenech the “Laburist Ġaħan” (Labourite fools) were only interested in politicians who could dispense favours and patronage.
Patronage and cronyism were not created by Labour but, post-2013, they became more widespread because voters found fertile ground nurtured by politicians. As greedy businessmen became wealthier and a class of nouveau riche emerged, there is no longer a clear distinction between asking an MP to obtain what is yours by right and demanding a favour that you have no right to or that will give you an unfair advantage over others.
No wonder, then, that at her first encounter with the prime minister and three cabinet members after the election, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Marisa Xuereb, called for the eradication of “clientelism that exists at every level of public administration”. She hammered the message home when, addressing the new cabinet, she spoke of practices that “propagate a culture of clientelism that increase inefficiency and lack of transparency”.
That appears to be a feeling and a desire shared by many. Indeed, as supporters were still celebrating the party’s landslide electoral victory, former Labour prime minister Alfred Sant was already appealing for a reform in governance practices that “go well beyond an assault on Malta’s corruption matrix”.
“Lines of command and responsibility from prime minister to the humblest clerk,” he wrote in an opinion piece in Times of Malta, “should be clearly laid out and transparent. Again, this would go against embedded cultures of nepotism, old boy networks, political patronage and much more.”
The statements made by both Sant and Xuereb underscore the damage that the currying of favours by politicians – under different guises and titles – cause to the country and its economy.
Regrettably, the practices persist and the culture keeps being nurtured by politicians unable to see beyond their noses or, rather, beyond the next election. The Chamber president knew what she was talking about when she appealed for “a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of abuse that is facilitated by those entrusted with a political or administrative capacity”. Well-meaning politicians, such as Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, ought to bear this in mind when trying to play down the matter by arguing that voters asking for “illegitimate things” are few.
Speaking before the election, Caruana had said such individuals did not exceed 20 per cent in each district. That is a fifth of the electorate.
On a national basis and considering the number of registered voters in this election, this would be the equivalent of 70,000 people. Given a quota of circa 4,000 votes, it is enough to elect 17 MPs.
The culture of clientelism must be reined in before it continues to get out of hand because, like the culture of impunity, it too can lead to very serious consequences, which the country can ill-afford.