One landslide after another

 

What else could I be referring to with this title, except the latest Maltese general election at the end of March, where the Partit Laburista (PL) again won government with a majority of 55.04% of votes, with the Partit Nazzjonalista (PN) getting 42.12%, a difference of 39474 votes.

 

This is the third time in a row that the PL has run rings around the PN at the poll that counts (in 2017 the results were PL 54.83%, PN 43.34%, a difference of 35280 votes, and in 2013 PL 54.83%, PN 43.34%, a difference of 35107 votes).

 

This result to me was extraordinary for two reasons.  The first is about how stable is the percentage distribution of votes, over a decade.  This means that the PL seems to have found a formula that the Maltese people likes, a formula that from a high level view is seen as positive overall, notwithstanding defects taht were becoming visible and reverberating around the world over many months.

 

The second reason is that elections I remember from my time still on the island and therefore eligible to vote, the vote difference used to be much less.  To find a time when a party obtained more than a 52% share in first preference votes on has to go back to 1955 when the PL (then called the Malta Labour Party - MLP) had obtained 56.73%.

 

The two major parties had quite interesting manifestoes.  The PL had the advantage of being the incumbent, therefore its manifest semmed to be a bit more detailed and comprehensive, generally a logical continuation of its policies that it had already been following.

 

Amongst the many projects and policies that the PL proposed, and which one would now expect to be delivered, what stood out to me were public transport becoming free for Maltese citizens (415), a decision to halt the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2034 (425), the contraceptive and morning after pill becoming free (509), and incentive for enterprises to have at least 40% of its executive leadership being female (658) and a new general hospital for Gozo (733).1

 

The PN also had some good ideas in my opinion.  A fundamental one I really liked was the very first, to no longer measure a country’s wealth only by traditional economic indicators like the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but by a swathe of other indicators that reflect the wellbeing of society and its communities.2  I had discussed this topic in edition 86 of The Voice of the Maltese.

 

Another PN proposal I liked was the addition to the educational curriculum of teaching about cultural diversity (521), intended to reduce suspicion and hatred towards immigrants from different cultures in Malta.

 

After the election result was clear, a process that did not take long at all, I immediately read some comments about the primary reason why the PN does not seem to be able to make inroads with the Maltese electorate being the lack of unity in the party.  It is a truism that disunity is death, and also that the party disunity is real and profound after the short and controversial leadership of Adrian Vella, but it seems to me that the difference between parties is more fundamental than this.

 

From my viewpoint, the origin of the difference between the parties came about when Joseph Muscat was elected leader of the PL, who was a generation younger than the head of the last tired Nationalist administration, Lawrence Gonzi.  There you had a young progressive against an elderly conservative.

 

As soon as he was given a chance in 2013, Muscat led a social progressive agenda that the PN initially was not prepared for, when Maltese society had long before started emerging from beneath its Catholic cloak.  Although at the end of the day the PN ended up voting in favour of divorce and today would not dare reverting the many reforms that were made, such as adoption by same sex couples, it is clear that there are many elements within the PN for whom these reforms will never ever be accepted, whose religio et patria heart is still beating as strong as ever.

 

Even today, for example, the PL manifesto has a whole section on LGBTIQ persons, whereas the PN equivalent only mentions them once directly.  People being part of that community will be very aware of who talks about that community with enthusiasm, and those who do so reluctantly.

 

The PL was also successful in the country’s economic management, with economic growth being for a while at the very top of European Union countries.  The PN did everything it could to take credit for this, with the slogan that the PL was building on solid foundations, however after 10 years in power, I think the PL must have been doing something right.

 

To tell you the truth, I think the PN knows this well, even if it does not acknowledge so explicitly.  Take one example which is often in the news, that of the Individual Investor Programme (IIP).  After all the insults about citizenship being for sale, a line that is still being made, the PN in fact did not propose to do away with the scheme, only to ensure that investments be active, ongoing and in some priority area of the country.

 

As a conclusion, it has to be said that this latest victory and continued faith of the people in the Labour leadership should not be taken to mean that the people is happy with the corruption web revealed within the highes echelons of the administration in recent years.  I believe that oppositions do not win elections, governments lose them when making egregious mistakes and think they are untouchable.  Although the Labour victory this year was as massive as previous ones, where was an unexpected reduction in the electorate’s participation, and this affected the PL almost as much as the PN.  

 

After car horns have stopped blaring and the champagne dried, this should serve as a warning.

 

1Malta Flimkien - Manifest Elettorali 2022; Partit Laburista

2Viżjoni Għal Malta 2030; Partit Nazzjonalista

The next crisis

 

Currently the world’s attention is turned to Ukraine, a huge country in Europe’s east, the second biggest after Russia.  Geographically, it has a long coast on the Black Sea, and borders with Russia, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova.

 

Ukraine has a long and complex history.  Its land has been inhabited by humans for more than thirty thousand years and, over the centuries, has been dominated by several groups from all sides, which includes the Ottomans, the Austrian-Hungarian empire and the Russian Tsars.

 

Ukraine was constituted in 1917 as a Soviet republic, part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and in 1954 its territory was augmented by the Crimean peninsula by the then Soviet leader Krushchev, who transferred it from the Russian republic.  Ukraine achieved its independence in 1991 when the USSR dissolved.

 

The biggest member of what was the USSR is the Russian Federation, and its leader Vladimir Putin has long been with a chip on his shoulder with the dismantling of the USSR, which then forced him to drive taxis to make ends meet.  He has long wanted to return his country to the grandeur and glory of the past, and instead has seen Russia suffer economically when the communist system failed.

 

Russia nevertheless remained prominent on the global scene in many fields, with its huge amount of nuclear armaments, with its developments in space many times superseding those of the United States, and supplying huge amounts of fuel (oil and gas) to western countries.  

 

However, through the years after the fall of the Berlin wall, it has seen countries that used to form part of the USSR (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and others under its influence (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and others join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

 

Now one has to understand that each sovereign country has, or should have, the right to decide how it is to conduct its own affairs and what alliances it should have, however this is a relatively new concept.  History is replete with empires, countries, and before these structures, strong city-states that decieded to snatch surrounding and far lands in order to avail of their resources - minerals, agriculture, slaves etc.  Where would we start naming?  The Roman Empire, the Ottomans, Mongols, Maya, the British Empire, the Spanish, the Portuguese etc.  Perhaps it is better to say, where shall we stop?

 

President Putin took the first step to turn back the clock in 2014 when he ordered the annexation of Crimea (it is interesting to note that this was the second time this has happened, as this had happened in 1783 by the Russian Republic of the time.)  The reaction of the world was one of condemnation, declarations and economic sanctions, but everything remained the same.

 

I imagine President Putin thinking, is this all?

 

Now his gaze is resting on the rest of Ukraine.  In a statement made before ordering the entry of the Russian army into two of Ukraine’s orbosts (provinces) in the East, in parts already dominated by Russia, i.e. Donetsk and Lugansk, he commented that Ukrainians are partners, friends and family.1

 

It is true there are many links between the two peoples - for example in the First World War three and a half million Ukrainians fought on the side of the Russian imperial army, fourteen times as many as fought on the other side, the Australian-Hungarian one.  Also over two whole centuries until the end of the seventeenth century, both the Ukrainian and Russian people suffered incursions by the Tartars of Crimea who took away an estimated two million persons as slaves, until Crimea was defeated by Russia as I have already mentioned.2

 

Today however, the world generally no longer expects to see a country take over another, as understood by international law, and this does not seem to be understood, or accepted, by Russia, even if there might be some legitimate historical considerations to be made.  In truth, the population of 41 million (if Crimea is excluded) is divided, between the majority of ethnic Ukrainians of 78% who probably would prefer to strengthen relationships with the West and the rest of Europe, and the Russian minority of 17% who would look to Russia.  There are also some other much smaller groups that come from the surrounding countries.

 

Now that Russia has gone inside parts of these provinces, are they stopping there? We already know the answer to that.  What is going to happen to the rest of the country?  What effect will the sanctions being applied by western countries have?

 

There does not seem to be any effect on Russian calculations.  It seems that Putin understands nothing except a tank pointing its guns against one of this own, and of a missile pointing against another of his - in other words, a fully fledged war.  However he also knows that the world is tired of war after war, and the United States no longer has the aura of invincibility it had after the second world war.  Just think of the farcical conclusion to Vietnam and more recently to Afghanistan.

 

Observing these developments rather quietly is China.  There they are probably thinking, is it possible that Putin manage to just take this country so easily?  Would two enormous, adjoining allies, as are Russia and China, be able to overcome economic sanctions?

 

Which is the next crisis?  Taiwan?

 

1http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828, retrieved 24/2/2022

2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine, retrieved 24/2/2022

A mess and 'Novax' Djokovic

 

How can I not say something about the saga currently being undergone by tennis champion Novak Djokovic?

 

This Serbian tennis player arrived a few days ago in Melbourne to take part in one of the four most important tennis tournaments globally, one of the so-called Grand Slams, of which Djokovic has triumphed twenty times (nine of them in Australia), a record he shares with the other greats Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

 

The original problem is that there is currently the COVID pandemic and he seems to have been caught up in the confusion around rules and regulations on what you can and cannot do in these times.

 

Australia currently has a rule saying people cannot come to the country unless they are double dosed with a vaccine or have a medical exemption.

 

From his side, Djokovic has never declared whether he has taken the COVID vaccine, but declared several times he’s against it, his public behaviour was very clear in not following recommendations on social distancing, and so I hope you’ll forgive me for speculating that the jab has not gone anywhere near his shoulder.

 

I do understand that whether you take the jab or not is a personal decision, but I do not understand why it is so secret.  If you are convinced about your decision, why do you not declare it, especially if you’re such a public figure?

 

But I digress.

 

The organisation that organises the tournament, Tennis Australia, and the Victorian state government, approved Djokovic’s medical exemption, a process that included medical expert boards.  The exact reason for this medical exemption was not declared, but is thought to be based on the fact that Djokovic had been infected with COVID some months back, and one of the criteria for assessing an exemption was the confirmation of a COVID infection up to six months before.1

 

The problem is this:  the federal government does not accept a COVID infection as an acceptable reason for a medical exemption to vaccination!  Therefore, as soon as Djokovic arrived with this contingent, the latter were allowed in as they were all jabbed, and Djokovic was separated, had his visa cancelled and is now in quarantine detention (the detention bit is disputed by the federal government).

 

Questions immediately arise:

a) why did Tennis Australia and the Victorian state government use criteria for medical exemption from the vaccination, when they knew this was not acceptable for people coming into the country, when the majority of participants in the Australian Open are foreigners?

b) why was a visa issued to him by the Australian Border Force, after it had been requested before he had to board the plane?

 

To confound the issue, a few days before Djokovic arrived, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison erred by declaring that if the Victorian state government had taken a decision for Djokovic to be allowed in, the federal government would be following the decision that had been taken.

 

However just a few hours after this statement, the music changed after a furore, with the theme being something like this: “How is is possible that so many thousands of Australians are unable to come back, amongst others due to a lack of vaccine, and this person is allowed in because he’s famous and has a lot of money” and “Why is it that I was unable to visit my mother across the border due to restrictions, and this guy receiving preferences?”

 

With the federal election approaching, no doubt Morrison is very sensitive to such criticism, and now the case has escalated dramatically, and a crisis has been created with Serbia, and much hubris around the world.

 

I personally have never liked Djokovic as a person, even while acknowledging his immense talent and ability in the game of tennis, however I have to say it is ridiculous to the extreme for a person to be given the impression that he’d be allowed in and play, get on the plane with his contingent and travel from one side of the globe to the other, and then be detained with the express intention of sending him back.  In fact, he’s not on his way back simply because he has opened a court case to nullify the federal government’s decision.

 

We shall see what happens with his court case, and in some other exemption cases which seem to have been given to other tennis players.

 

There is no winner in this story.

 

1https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-06/novak-djokovic-timeline/100740958, retrieved 6/1/2022