Most people have never forked out a cent to any political party and would not dream of doing so. They may feel that they get it all for free and wish that they did not get it at all. In fact they pay through their noses and never get a receipt.
Interviewed in 2003 Joe Saliba PN Secretary General, estimated that his party had spent around Lm480,000 on the general election campaign. Thousands must have thought that it was a glorious waste of money and guesstimated that the MLP had spent a similar fortune. A mass meeting five years ago would put the PN back by Lm10,000. The MLP must be forking out similar amounts in such events.
To most innocent bystanders it does not mean much at first glance. Who cares? Perhaps we should. Election campaign expenses are only the tip of the iceberg. The expenses between elections are no joke either. Where does it all come from? Time and again we are told that party businesses, subscription fees and the generous donations in the pre-Christmas TV extravaganzas cover it all.
If it had all been clear and above board as Joe Saliba has insisted, why has Lawrence Gonzi promised a law regulating the financing of political parties, to take effect maybe, sometime in the next legislature? And why not before the election?
Politics as a whole has nosedived in the popularity polls and donations from eager partisans must be getting ever more scarce leaving the parties exposed to donors who expect something in return for the hefty amounts they advance.
While Malta remains one of very few countries with a claim to democratic institutions that still does not regulate the financing of political parties, the major donors remain shy about their generosity. While other countries have had scandals of all sorts exposed, Malta does not even have a law to be broken. And still the donors do not boast of their openhandedness.
Some people are irritated when they receive mail from Ministers in government envelopes which are little more than state subsidized canvassing. Others realize that several state advertising campaigns costing tens of thousands are a free ride taken by the party in government at taxpayers’ expense. Did we really need to advertise the new state hospital to such an extent? Was there any danger of it losing our business? All this is just small potatoes.
When a road is not finished in a reasonable time, if the cost overruns are systematic and huge, it must be awkward for a government minister to come down like a ton of bricks on a generous donor to his party. How about planning permits? The choice of plant and equipment? Which policies are influenced by whom? Which reforms are delayed in order not to cause discomfort to which loyal enterprise? We may never know. We can never be sure either way.
However, as long as it remains within the legitimate options of anybody with deep pockets to buy out a political party, we would be unwise and indeed naïve not to suspect the worst. Such suspicions are strengthened by the poor quality of our urban environment and the constant threat under which what remains of our rural environment survives. The cost of cost-free politics is, very probably, simply hideous.
No matter which political party assumes power as a one-party government following the 2008 election, unless the system is radically changed, we will continue to pay through our noses. We will continue to be annoyed by all the systems that do not work as they should and not even begin to guess why not. Nobody will ever begin to assess the cost of this dominant, covert anti-system.
My guess is that if donations and loans to political parties above a certain amount were to be made public, very many things would change. Above all many of the numerous spanners in the works would be pulled out. The taxpayer would make a huge bargain.
In all likelihood we would then have our first party financing scandal some time in the future. While we may poke fun at Italians for their tangentopoli and mani pulite sandals, at the Germans and French for the Kohl-Mitterand debacle or at the British for their cash-for-ermine comedy, we are being robbed blind. The availability of all government systems to ordinary citizens is significantly reduced. We can never achieve our full potential relying on a mechanism which is necessarily warped.
Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party has demanded a law on the financing of political parties at least since 1992. Until very recently the only result was an increase in the expenditure allowed to election candidates making their returns of expenditure following every election less of an insolent joke. Following previous elections AD candidates refused to file a return in protest at the blatant falsehood of sworn returns passively accepted by the Electoral Commission. We were duly prosecuted.
On the eve of the 2008 election Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has promised us all a law on the financing of political parties if he is elected to the post he holds and when he is moved to keep his word. What exactly he proposes is not clear. Going on previous reforms in the field he may legitimate the present system and claim that it has been regulated.
The big question is why has he chosen to adopt a crucial reform proposal made by the Greens almost two decades ago, only now? Why not six months ago? Why not on his taking office to inaugurate a new era in Maltese politics? Would it be embarrassing to have to divulge all the obligations his party may have taken on in view of the next round of elections? For at least the next five years the effect of such obligations will continue to take their toll whether or not an effective regulation of party financing sees the light of day.
This election will produce a government under the influence of the present system just as the one before it and the one before that and so on in unbroken sequence. The undocumented but harrowing cost will continue. Regardless of all the fanfare and the mass enthusiasm, the rousing speeches and the fun filled events, ordinary citizens will continue to be robbed of the full effect of their tax money, and our governments, of whichever hue they happen to be, will continue to fall short of their full potential. That much is a certainty.
What remains in doubt is whether the PN adoption of the Green proposal to come clean on party financing will ever take effective shape. How likely is it that a government under the influence can legislate effectively to rid itself of the shackles it is now begging for? How likely is it that the matter will even be raised in parliament without the full force of Green prodding?
Our campaign on the joint issues of rent reform and property prices including the ongoing referendum campaign has been effectively resisted by government. Not being able to stonewall completely as it is did prior to 2003, the government promised a White Paper which is now 2 years past its due-by date. Without Greens in government making such reforms necessarily part of a government programme agreed in coalition talks, we will have waffle and promises on good governance as we have had on rent reform. With Greens in government, we will find out what the cost has been and finally put an end to it.
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