04 Dec The important role of the Opposition
Last week I read with interest, Roselyn Borg’s commentary on Facebook. Besides being a friend, Roselyn is also one of the brave new candidates with the Nationalist Party.
Her commentary started off with an explanation of the PN’s objection to Mario Cutajar’s (Head of Civil Service) partisan defense of the Government. After reading the myriad of negative comments against the PN, that were left under the Mario Cutajar story, Roselyn felt the need to clarify what she thinks is the role of a strong Opposition.
She explained that the main role of a strong Opposition is to raise questions, and to hold the Government accountable of its actions. And she’s right of course because, this is the only way a democracy can work well. Without a strong opposition, we’d be living in a virtual tyranny.
However, at least for the time being, we have two serious problems with our Opposition – two serious issues that neutralize almost all the efforts it makes to question and to hold the Government accountable.
Issue no 1: History neutralizes valid arguments
Since the Nationalist Party has not been in Opposition anywhere near long enough, whenever it opens its mouth, it is more often than not met with the usual “have you forgotten what you (or your party) did in your days?”
This is more effective when people in the street do it, rather than when members of the Labour Party start to throw mud across the room. When people’s memories serves them well, the Opposition’s argument is torn to pieces and invalidated, not because it’s not valid or nonsensical but because concrete historic examples of the Nationalist Party’s own wrongdoings creates mistrust. In turn, this mistrust automatically invalidates the argument.
Lest we forget that a good memory is exactly what had kept the Labour Party on the Opposition benches for so long – it was the memories of our fathers and grandfathers, and their horrid stories of torture, bombs, unrest, and civil injustices, that kept a lot of people, even youngsters who had never experienced a Labour Government, from voting.
It is a bit like having adulterers telling you to stay loyal to your spouse – whilst their advice is undoubtedly good and valid, it is automatically neutralized and invalidated by their past behaviour.
In our political world, it usually goes something like this – “have you seen the latest? They’ve employed 2000 new people in the civil service. Isn’t that just appalling?”
Then someone whose memory serves them well will respond “Don’t you remember when at the eve of the last election, the PN signed a new collective agreement with government employees giving them 2.5% on their salaries? Did you know that this amounted to €190 million over six years?”
And bang, just like that, the Government’s ‘appalling’ move is neutralized. Not because it’s right to employ 2000 people in the civil service, but because the historic example from the PN days, proves that there’s no real alternative, and that probably, when it comes to dirty tricks and wrong doings, both parties are the same.
Issue no 2: A strong opposition needs to be a valid alternative Government
There may be different shades of understanding as to what the Opposition should be doing and whilst it is true that the Opposition’s main role is to question the government and to hold it accountable to the public, in order to be truly effective, it also needs to be in a position to present an alternative government. Unfortunately because of its recent past, and also because many need to defend their own decision to vote for Labour, the majority does not consider the Nationalist Party as a viable alternative to the Government (yet).
And here is where I think Alternattiva Demokratika, and the smaller parties come in. The two big parties will never stop playing their own petty ball game, and Alternattiva is still not in a position to present a viable alternative government, but if the Opposition wants to make some kind of headway, it needs smaller parties such as Alternattiva Demokratika to work with it, and help it increase its influence and effectiveness.
Since Alternattiva has never been in Government, the usual arguments of ‘don’t you remember what your party did in its days in Government?’ stop holding water. So when the Opposition joins forces with a party like Alternattiva, it increases its chances of effectively challenging the government without being neutralized with one person’s single memory. This gives us a stronger Opposition, which is something we desperately need if our democracy is going to survive at all.
No one is wrong all of the time
The Opposition might also need to be reminded that no one is wrong all of the time, not even a broken clock. There need to be occasions when the Opposition agrees with the Government wholeheartedly, without ifs and buts and without petty exceptions.
I’m not saying that this does not happen, but unfortunately it is controversy that gets media attention. Nods of agreement from the Opposition don’t make good headlines, but if the Nationalist Party is to stop appearing negative, it needs to find a way of making these moments of absolute agreement and collaboration with the Government, known to the public.
Getting creative with resources
And of course the public understands that parties in Opposition (and especially smaller parties) don’t have access to the same resources as the party in Government and that they need all the help they can get to get their message across. The Party in Government has access to its departments, consultants and all the state mechanism, whilst the Opposition doesn’t, but the last thing a party in the Opposition (especially when it had been in Government for 25 years) should do, is to unveil its sour grapes.
For example, instead of challenging the Government on a law that protects rental agreements on social clubs, and which was introduced during its own party’s administration, the Opposition needs to get more creative and tap into other means. For starters it needs to liaise with the public and other small parties because, if used well and filtered intelligently, they hold a lot of valuable free information – if only they’re listened to effectively.
The Opposition, even when it is outnumbered as ours is today, plays an incredibly important role in democracy. Without it, there’s no democracy to speak of, but whilst its duty is to oppose, like everything else in life, there are effective and non-effective ways of doing so.
*this article was first published on The Malta Independent on Sunday.
