It’s Tuesday evening and here I am glued to my laptop listening to what’s going on in parliament. Not because I’m expecting anything particular to happen, but this is too good to miss out on. Sometimes the way our parliamentary representatives - trusted with running our country – speak out reminds me of kids bickering with one another. The sweetest thing is hearing our Prime Minister say that he respects his opponents and when we hear them arguing it’s just out of respect for one another.
Like most people I was following what was going on in parliament in the last few days. After Franco Debono’s abstention I found myself following a three hours and a half parliamentary debate which led to a vote of confidence in the government which everyone knew would pass. Franco Debono himself – who seems to be the greatest dissident within his party – admitted from day one that he will be voting in favour of such a motion. Honestly, this parliamentary debate left me none the wiser and I still can’t figure out what was the aim of this motion of confidence in the Nationalist government. After three hours and a half of useless political rhetoric which had nothing to do with what led to this motion of confidence in the first place it is still very unclear to me what was the final aim of this whole parade.
Going back a few days, I would dare say that few people imagined that Franco Debono will stand his ground and abstain when voting about the Labour’s parliamentary motion calling for Austin Gatt’s resignation. Many stated that if Franco Debono was true to his words he should have voted in favour of the Opposition’s motion and not simply abstaining because if you abstain it’s like you have no opinion on the matter. However, the fact that he did not stand up with all his other colleagues when called to vote definitely required some good nerve. I don’t think it’s easy to see all your colleagues around you standing up to vote against the Opposition’s motion while you remain seated.
This was the turning point that led to Lawrence Gonzi presenting a motion of confidence in his government on Tuesday. However during his speech and during the other speeches I listened to the real crux of the matter was never discussed. At the very end of the parliamentary debate I managed to listen to Franco Debono who did a two minute speech in what sounded to my ears as a very nervous tone of voice in which he said nothing different from what we already heard before apart from the fact that he emphasized that in his opinion it was the public transport reform that embarrassed the government and not the backbenchers.
What happened in the past few days provided one of the very few times that parliamentary sittings were having a good following, irrelevant of whether Tuesday’s parliamentary debate was just a waste of time and energy. The pity is that many have lost their faith in politics a long time ago. This is truly a shame because we should be the ones who should push forward for a new way of doing politics.
Call me too much of an optimistic but I believe that most people, are yearning to see a different way of getting things done where people are not judged by their political affiliation but on whether they are capable or not in carrying out an excellent job they are given. The time to accept mediocrity should have been long-gone by now. Maybe what’s going on right now in parliament is the dawn of a new era or maybe not. Hopefully time will tell and challenges to the status quo will give a sense of anticipation to the people who have lost faith in politics a long time ago.
