The middle path in politics is not the reconfiguration of policies through the combination of selective political ideological thinking. It is a mechanism devised to interact with a wide variety of different interests and orientations that represent the political landscape, mediating and reconciling conflicts within the safe precincts of liberal-democratic order.
For many decades, this political phenomenon constituted the foundations of the European Union basic treaties.
This middle path approach was unfailingly somehow imbued in the history of the Nationalist Party and applied by its leaders.
The post-1987 governments were effectively an exercise in reconciliatory propositions leading up to the EU Athens membership agreement.
The PN needs to depart from the categorisation of centrism; often assimilated with the strategies of ‘catch-all’ or ‘vote seeking policy’ parties. It would approach a replica of the current party in government, possibly with lesser alleged transgressions.
Party members and its ‘in-between figures’ assisting in policy formation have to be prepared to interpret the party’s statute mission as a dialogue with faith. Faith has far reaching connotations that go beyond religions or notions of secularism.
The middle path is a constant evolutionary process. Its success depends on the motivation and commitment of political parties, as vehicles for governance, and the effective participation of all institutions and political society representing the greater whole.
In post-war Europe, people clamoured for reconstruction and longed for a unifying and transcendent reconciliation. Former political actors, who had hibernated during the fascist expansionist totalitarian regimes, researched an alternative formula to the then apparent sidelined ideologies of liberalism, socialism and fascism, in addition to the challenges of communism.
Confronted with the diverse complexities of traditional norms and regulations, and the religious and humanistic heritage of these peoples, these influential political and academic elites embraced a set of concepts, proposals and values that characterised these diverse societies. Drawing inspiration from this heritage and the aftermath of recent authoritarian regimes, states drafted constitutions and established institutions, including constitutional courts, that led to a liberal “constrained democracy” (Jan-Werner Müller: 2011).
The middle path is a constant evolutionary process
The way forward was the middle path. It constituted a process of developing an empirical political thought, based on the peoples’ experiences and aspirations, that reconciled such set of principles to modern democracy. The middle path was identified in accordance with “notion of popular autonomy based on the idea of a coincidence between the subjective element of popular choice and the objective element of conformity with the temporal common good” (Invernizzi Accetti: 2019).
Aldo Moro (1977) contends that it is not important we think the same things and hope for the same destiny but what is important is that all own a free breadth, all own intangible space, all connected with one another in the acceptance of freedom, respect and dialogue.
Over past decades, the notion of homogeneity declined. Political parties, by nature, are heterogeneous coalitions. Societies in these ‘modern times’ are composed of a myriad of interest-specific groups.
Every unit is a unique and integral whole, forming part of a community which is itself a greater whole. Yet, one cannot live without the other.
I consider these political or societal correnti as valuable assets, operating within the parameters of prescribed code of ethics and morals. These need not be repaired but considered as part of the greater whole along what Moro perceives as civil peace.
While a programming vision is a sine-qua-non for a party seeking credibility and legitimacy in a representative democracy, it is also imperative that it navigates as one with the people facilitating co-decision making and inviting societal interest-specific groups to participate and deliberate in the country’s destiny.
Charles Schembri, former senior public officer