TMID Editorial: Choosing the best people
For 100 years, Parliament has served as a symbol of Malta’s democracy.
Earlier this month activities were held to commemorate the important event when Malta, which at that time was still under British rule, was given the right to set up its own House of Representatives. It took another four decades to achieve Independence, and since then we have had 12 elections to elect our parliamentarians, and we are moving towards the 13th.th.
Over the years, and particularly since the perverse outcome of 1981, we have had changes in the electoral system to better reflect the will of the people. In 1981, the Labor Party won the majority of seats despite getting fewer votes than the Nationalist Party. But these alterations were not perfect either – the way the system worked, for example, gave Alfred Sant an extra seat in 1996 despite winning by a margin of enough to have three, and we all remember that his government did not. did not last too long.
Whether our parliamentary system is playing its role properly is an argument that has been going on for the last … 100 years. Too often it has failed to meet expectations, and is seen by the public as a mere rubber stamp of what the government wants to do. Legislation is tabled, discussed and amended, and finally enacted. But while this purpose is a heavy machinery within the list of functions that parliament performs, what we have in place does little to keep the administration under control.
It would be worse if one party had a two-thirds majority in the House, as this would mean that it could change the Constitution without thinking about what the Opposition was saying. Given the latest survey, we are not too far from that.
Since independence, in most cases we have only had two parties represented in Parliament. The only exceptions were the presence of a Democratic Alternative between 1989 and 1992, but the first AD leader Wenzu Mintoff had been elected to Labor and then broke ranks; and the Democratic Party in this current legislature. On both occasions, this situation was short-lived, as Mintoff was not re-elected in 1992, while the two PD representatives, Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia, left the PD to become deputies. independent and said they do not intend to contest in 2022. .
This situation of two parties largely meant that often both the PL and the PN, when in government at different time periods, first sought the interests of the their own party, rather than that of the country, when they perform their duties in Parliament. Along with this, the current administration has set records in the number of ministers and parliamentary secretaries appointed, leaving a few backbenchers who are then given lucrative roles that keep them from scrutinizing the same government that employs them.
For many years we talked about the need to have a full-time MP, but that never materialized. People who may be interested in a political career often prefer to stay behind and keep their profession. This deprives the country of higher quality representation.
But then, after all, it is up to the people to decide which MPs to put in the House on their behalf. Many times, they made a bad choice.