In a single interview, Joe Giglio, the Nationalist Party’s home affairs spokesman, declared he was content to be what he coyly called a “bishop” (for now) but somehow that didn’t stop him from issuing a papal bull, which was at odds with a long-standing PN position.
The first rule of political self-respect: thou shalt not issue bull, papal or otherwise.
If, after an interview, you need to issue a clarification to clean up what you actually said, you must have botched it. If the clarification involves blaming the public for confusing two different things, then you’ve continued to mess up.
The second rule of political self-respect: ask not upon whom the bull falls. It falls on thee.
If the incident were only about Giglio, it wouldn’t be worth dragging the matter further. But the event opens a window on the PN and the character of its crisis of identity.
Giglio botched it when he didn’t shut down the questions about his short stint as lawyer for Pilatus Bank, which many suspect was a laundromat.
He was asked if there was a problem between that engagement and his current role. All he had to say was: “No. The engagement was brief. I gave it up as soon as Labour turned it into a political football. And, only a week before the 2017 general election, which was fought over corruption, I felt completely comfortable speaking at a PN activity urging a vote against Joseph Muscat because he had lost the plot.”
Giglio did say some of that. But he buried it all under his views, expressed at great length, about Maria Efimova’s credibility, seemingly unaware of how that would command all the attention.
He also said her testimony on Egrant still needs to be heard, if necessary by testifying from abroad. But, of course, that was buried, too.
He can’t blame the public or the media or civil society for not divining his message. People rightly paid most attention to what he spent copious time discussing, not his telegraphic answers.
If your message doesn’t ring loud and clear, then it’s on you. Nor should you blame people for being astounded that, on one of the key policy differences between the two major political parties, you echoed some of Labour’s talking points.
Giglio botched it when he didn’t shut down the questions about his short stint as lawyer for Pilatus Bank- Ranier Fsadni
If you need to wag your finger at the public and tell them they should distinguish very carefully whether, in any given minute, you’re speaking as a legal professional or as the PN’s spokesman, then you’re basically admitting to having different views in private to the ones you espouse as policy.
Saying they are personal views doesn’t cut it. Saying they are professional views is even worse – suggesting that the party position is at variance with an expert view.
Yet, that’s just about what the PN did when it tried to have it both ways. It asserted its long-standing position on the Egrant allegations and, at the same time, attempted to smooth over Giglio’s gaffe by suggesting that the public must be agile enough to keep up with his multifaceted perspective.
What’s striking in all this is the lack of self-awareness. Giglio wasn’t prepared for the questions about the relationship between his professional legal work and his political portfolio. Otherwise, he surely wouldn’t have answered them so badly.
Not to be aware that those questions were likely to arise – and not to have been warned by the party machine that they would arise – indicates a detachment from some of the political constituencies that the PN must win over.
It’s a detachment that clearly afflicts the party, too. Consider what it let pass, without correction, in what else Giglio said.
Asked about the NGO Repubblika’s position on the attorney general and the police commissioner, Giglio tried to shut the question down by saying that the PN and Repubblika were two autonomous entities with their own respective voices.
Good point: it needs to be made and reiterated. Except that having just said that the PN has its own voice, Giglio gave his own personal opinion on whether the attorney general and the police commissioner should resign. He negated the very voice he had just defended.
What he should have said was: “We’re following the situation closely and with concern. We know that people expect us to speak up on the matter. It’s because the voice of the opposition carries such weight that we are cautious. But we will make ourselves heard.” (Well, let’s hope they do.)
If you insist on your party having an autonomous voice but leave reasonable people thinking that the PN’s silence is simply reflecting your private professional needs – as has happened – then you’ve botched it.
Once more, there’s a lack of self-awareness. A question about the PN’s relationship to Repubblika was inevitable. Was Giglio’s reply – a political party is “higher” than an NGO – the best he could do?
This is an issue the PN should have an answer to, with every MP singing from the same page. It should be an easy two-pronged answer.
Part one: The PN’s basic policy is to give space to civil society. It’s right there in Fehmiet Bażiċi. Giving space means allowing civil society to represent a wide spectrum of identities and conflicting views, independent of political parties.
Part two: A political party must pay attention to the whole of civil society and then make up its own mind, given its own mission and constitutional role. Just as it would be a mistake to stifle civil society, it would be a mistake for a party to suppress its own distinctive voice.
The only difficulty with that answer is that, right now, the public hasn’t heard the PN’s distinctive voice for such a long time they’re no longer sure what it sounds like. It’s why they keep confusing the PN with what it’s not.
Sometimes, you have to wonder if its own MPs still remember what that voice sounds like.