Party people

The Party is paramount. All hail the Party.

The Party is the Alpha and the Omega and all that there is in between. Quite frankly, it is impressive how the Constitution of this great republic has not been amended to reflect the fact that “Malta is a democratic republic based on the Party”.

The Party, or Parties, seemed to be one of the main motives for the government’s absurd flip-flopping on COVID-19 restrictions. At one point, Malta was infamously pushed as an oasis in COVID-shut Europe where all party-going people could converge.

A hapless Tourism Minister bereft of any sense of scientific certainty pioneered the riding of the wave of opportunism. Business, we were told, would be good and safe because “we know what we are doing”.

Even as it became evident that the new wave had reached the Maltese shores in spite of Bobby’s assurances to the contrary, we persevered in a sadistic headstrong obsession of spinning the wheels of the economy at all costs.

Not only will we enjoy summer to the full but the party is here to stay. After a contradictory press conference the rehashed regulations were revisited and we now had to be experts in geography and trigonometry whenever we attended public events.

Still, the President of the Republic went ahead with his August Moon Ball. The show must go on, right? Parties being the topmost show of them all. An occasion to rub shoulders with the latest influencers of the nation – because what is politics if not a VIP show of the untalented, the incompetent and the crass.

Meanwhile, the man used to partying hard at Girgenti to the tune of “Ma tagħmlu xejn...” had now dragged his disgraced self to Ischia for a no-expenses-spared holiday. Judging by the photos posted on Instagram by that empty vessel of a floating non-influencer he seems to intend to continue to party hard.

It would be a private matter were it not for the fact that judging by his declarations he is blatantly living beyond his means. Of course, someone else may have paid for it, again.

Do not expect our Commissioner for Public Standards to do anything but rubber stamp this kind of behaviour. He is after all cut from the same Party cloth as this generation of disgraced politicians who are long past their expiry date.

The parties in opposition and out of parliament lived their own vicissitudes this week. The micro parties of AD and PD merged into a not so creative AD/PD formation. They have much to work on if they are to break the PLPN hegemony. The PN side of that hegemony was shaken by a vote that means a new leadership contest is in the making.

Reading the various social media posts by persons from different sides of the PN spectrum (and beyond) one thing remains a constant. The lexicon of the Party remains an overriding constant. Between declarations of undying love for The Party and announcements of grandiose plans to return The Party to its glorious past we can rest assured that the Party-dominated mentality is alive and kicking.

Talk of “hurt” and “pride” concerning a political party is, to say the least, corny. At worst it uncovers the sick, distorted perception of how democracy should work. It has been pointed out that the only split in the PN is actually a split about who should be the leader.

This speaks volumes about politics in our country. We have no ideological challenge going on in the PN. At least not openly. Pundits may place their bets on which is the more conservative or liberal of the strands within the Party but, in actual fact, the truth is that there is very little substance behind the factions beyond the need to change or preserve the leader.

There is actually a real and present danger that Adrian Delia be replaced with a party apparatchik through and through – one that has all the characteristics of being a Party person. A man or woman of the people who can feel the ‘hurts’ of multiple electoral losses and who is prepared to make a pact with whatever devil is peddling his wares round Pieta at the moment. This kind of person would fit the empty hull that the PN has become.

That, in reality, is what our glorious Parties have really become. They are vessels in a system of unmeritocratic dependency within which the unthinking apparatchiks thrive. So long as they are perceived to be working for the glory of the Party then all the rest should follow automatically.

The Party is dead! Long live the Party!