PDP COMING SECOND WOULD BE A WIN

 

I believe there are two sets of candidates in this by-election: those who are in it to win and those who are standing more in hope than in expectation.

In the first camp is Albert Isola, who is standing to replace the late lamented Charles Bruzon. The GSLP naturally hopes that Isola will retain Bruzon’s seat and if he does I believe he will bring added even exceptional talents to the government. Also in this camp I put Nick Cruz because I suspect he believes he has the ability to win even if the reality is he may have to settle for second. Ironically a victory for Isola and second for Cruz would mark them both down as winners. Interestingly those I have spoken to say that is how they rated them after the Caleta Chamber dinner.

In the second group are the GSD who had they been wise would never have been in the race in the first place. However they are so their objective has become not to snatch a GSLP seat but to stop themselves being shoved in to third (or even fourth) place. Bryan Zammit the Second is the rank outsider but he wants to heighten his profile. I have no trouble with that: a man can not live by pizza alone.

As Danny Feetham learnt before with his short spell as Labour leader breakaway parties usually go unelected and hence have a hard time of it. However the party that Keith Azopardi built and Nick Cruz now leads has a genuine chance not so much to be elected but to force itself into the mainstream political arena.

If the PDP can put up a good showing in this election and push the GSD in to third place then at the next election, when a full slate of seats are up for grabs, we could well see PDP MPs in Parliament: they may even form the Opposition.

Cruz has already shown he understands the right strategy for this election with his statement on the government’s budget which was largely supportive. Of course he will set down how the PDP would govern differently from the GSLP and Liberals, he will offer constructive criticism, but his real task is to persuade GSD voters that their home is now with his party and not that of Feetham. He has to tackle the GSD head on.

There is only one result that will save Feetham and that is for the GSD to win Charles Bruzon’s seat. If they come second Feetham will have failed at his first fence. If the GSD comes second with the PDP breathing down its neck alarm bells will ring in the party’s ranks. If the PDP come second it could spell the beginning of the end of Feetham’s hold on power. In this election the PDP has everything to win and the GSD everything to lose.

I have a soft spot for the PDP and have written here before about my admiration for how in the past they have engaged in community politics. I have to say I believe the PDP is miles from being a party of government and in many ways the party organisation has been woeful – they could learn a lot from the old unelected GNP-Liberals. None-the-less with a new leader they have a new opportunity and could yet become the new GSD.

As always it will be for you, the voters, to decide.

WHEN PARTIES DEBATE

The GSD, in the form of Isobel Ellul-Hammond, has raised its concerns that the Liberal Party may be allowed a separate voice in GBC debates such as on Parliamentary Reform. Her point being that as the Liberals are in coalition with the GSLP her party would in effect be having to debate with the government from two angles.

I see her point but it very much depends on how the debate is constituted. If GBC has asked a Government Minister and the GSD Shadow to debate an issue such as broadcasting then of course it should be on a one to one basis. However if the debate is amongst political parties then the Liberals are as entitled to their say as the GSD or the GSLP.

The fact that the GSLP and the Liberals have been in coalition in opposition and now government over a long period is neither here nor there. They are two independent parties, with their own organizations, leaders and members. They may have found a way over the years to work closely together but I suspect if you discussed politics with a member of the Liberal Party and a member of the GSLP, although they would have a joint centre left approach, they equally would have a very different take on any given issue.

Both parties are also very distinctive in the GSLP being a sister party of Labour whilst the Liberals are closely linked to both Liberal International and the Lib Dems.

If we take the UK as an example if there is a TV or radio debate on a key political issue it is not unusual to see a Conservative MP pitted against a Lib Dem MP with a Labour MP thrown in. The difference comes when the subject for debate is one of government and there the Minister will take part, who may be Conservative or Lib Dem, with a Labour Opposition spokesperson giving their party’s view.

So Isobel Ellul-Hammond would be right if GBC was creating a debate on a government issue. Then obviously only the minister should be involved, regardless of his or her party, and likewise the opposition spokesperson would speak for the GSD. However if the debate is between parties then our Liberals have as much right to be heard as the GSLP or GSD.

Indeed if it is a party debate then the PDP should also be included. They have earned the right to be heard for in two general elections they have fielded a full slate of candidates. The fact that none of them were elected is neither here nor there. People still voted for them.

If the PDP was included and as it sprang from the GSD then the two parties’ views on an issue could well be in alignment. So would it be fair for the GSLP and Liberals only to have one voice when those of the PDP and GSD were ranged against it in a party debate? I would say not.

These issues are far more complex than a sound bite but I can’t blame Isobel Ellul-Hammond for trying. Being a believer in democracy over all else I would defend any party’s right to be heard: that goes for the GSLP and the GSD; it certainly goes for the Liberals and yes the PDP too. The PDP may not have any MPs but they did win votes and the people who voted PDP have the right for their party’s views to be aired alongside those of the other elected parties in public debate.

PDP OBJECTIVE: HOUND CARUANA, WIN A SEAT

The decision of the former Supreme Leader to stand down as leader of the GSD and opposition comes as no surprise to anybody. If there is a surprise it is that he stayed on so long. On purely human terms if you have been chief minister for four consecutive terms, no mean achievement, why would you want to spend a fifth term leading the troops you led to defeat on the opposition benches. No it is better to be off and to spend more time with your family.

However that is not what has happened. The former Supreme Leader has stood down as party leader and leader of the opposition but will still draw his pay although it appears he intends to be just a token MP. It is a role that our constitution does not really allow for. Either you are elected to government and become a minister or you are on the opposition benches and are a shadow minister. Sitting around, popping in if you feel like it, taking your salary has not been previously on the agenda.

When the voters elect their MPs they expect them to serve. They serve either in government or in opposition. The role of an MP who just collects his dosh has not been envisaged by either Gibraltarians or the rules that govern our parliament.

Now it is unlikely the GSD will push Caruana out. It would mean a by-election that the party might not win. In all probability the GSD is still in awe of the former Supreme Leader so his former cabin boy Daniel Feetham would probably only shove if he wanted a replacement in his own image and likeness - like the brother.

The GSLP Liberal coalition is unlikely to press the point either. Having Caruana in parliament serves them well. It reminds the voters of who led the previous four administrations, it gives the GSD no chance to move on, Caruana is there when needed for when further chickens come home to roost and they can point to Caruana in opposition doing what he did in government – using the public’s money as if it was his own.

Hence it falls to the PDP to hound Caruana until he goes. It allows the unelected party to take the high moral ground and campaign on what an abuse to our parliamentary system the former Supreme Leader’s presence in elected chamber is. If the campaign is intense enough it may well result in his departure to his allotment in Sotogrande.

Once he is gone it leaves the PDP with the real first chance of winning a seat in parliament. In a straight fight with the GSD, and if they put up a candidate loved by the GSD diehards, they could find the reward is an MP. Then at the next election the centre right vote is up for grabs. This would certainly be the case if the GSLP Liberal coalition did not contest the seat.

The government already has its full slate of MPs but I am led to believe there is nothing to stop them adding an eleventh in a by-election. There are certainly those in both governing parties who would argue if there is an election they should contest it. However given that this election could lead to a fatal split in the GSD ranks by leaving its supporters free to back the PDP that might be the preferred option.

Of course this is all theory. It will only become fact if the PDP hounds Caruana out of his cosy seat and then mounts a strong challenge. It remains to be seen if the party, born of a rupture in centre right politics, can leave its comfort zone of just issuing wrist slapping press releases and join the political big boys (and girls). The signs so far are not encouraging.

WE’LL I NEVER SAW THAT COMING!

So Daniel Feetham is the new leader of the GSD. Hold me steady, I’m in shock, I never saw that coming!

The GSD election battle was the nearest you’ll see to a one horse race with two runners. The GSD executive chose the winner; just why the wider party was not consulted I know not, perhaps there isn’t one. However I guess the executive deciding it is a step up from the former Supreme Leader dictating matters. It is hardly democracy at work but then the wider electorate will have its chance to decide at the next general election whether Daniel Feetham is chief minister material or not.

The current chief minister is also leader of the GSLP, a party that Feetham once aspired to lead. Fabian Picardo is not known to be a drinker of substances alcoholic, may be the occasional glass of wine. Well on Monday night he could be excused a tincture or two in celebration of the election of Mr Feetham because without a doubt he was the candidate the majority of members of the GSLP favoured.

As Nick Cruz the leader of the PDP observed in my interview with him last week both Feetham and his challenger Bossino would split the GSD as was seemingly reflected in the executive vote. It sure is a rum show because as Cruz pointed out both Feetham and Bossino started out in politics in party’s opposing the GSD and now one of them is leading it. I suspect Bossino will keep his ambitions burning because there may yet be a vacancy sooner than he expects. Meanwhile all the true members of the GSD are over at the PDP and I wonder how long it will be till others join them.

Of course Daniel Feetham has been a party leader before with his ill-fated Labour Party. He ditched that, got in to political bed with the arch enemy of his family, and was even instrumental in giving birth to the PDP. And all he wanted to do was lead the GSLP - and be chief minister.

So the GSD executive, in its infinite wisdom, elected the socialist Daniel Feetham as its leader over the Liberal Damon Bossino. So will the next election manifesto be a centre right GSD one or a socialist one? You sell your political soul and make your choice.

I still believe Damon Bossino was closer to the true heart of the old GSD even with a Liberal twist. He is young, bright and had three years to learn the ropes of leadership a skill that Feetham is yet to master despite all his reincarnations.

The problem for the GSD is as the former Supreme Leader edges towards the exit door the black legacy of his administrations live on with Feetham. What the party needed was a new broom instead it has the former chief minister’s bag carrier.

There are still numerous skeletons rattling in the government cupboards on the GSD’s abuses whilst in power which still have to be let out. The former chief minister isn’t escaping them; they are clinging to his ankle like a prison ball and chain. His party had the chance on Monday night by electing Bossino to distance itself from the past. Instead they have chosen Feetham who was as close to the former supreme leader as you could get. It is a decision the GSD may yet live to regret.

COULD THE PDP BE THE NEW GSD?

The PDP has one key strength and one major weakness: Keith Azopardi. Azopardi is a popular politician as can be seen in his personal vote that was way above the other PDP candidates at the last election. However he was also known as a card carrying member of the GSD and a former deputy chief minister to Caruana: so if you want to support a centre right party it is logical to vote for the real thing rather than the pretender. I will leave the PDP for a moment and move on to the GSD.

The big changes in the political scene between now and the next election are likely to take place in the GSD. To be honest it makes little difference whether Caruana leaves the political scene or not. He is a political dead man walking and the future of the party lies with his deputy leader and not him.

It is more in the interests of the GSLP Liberals that Caruana sticks around than the GSD. I know many on the centre left want to see the back of him but not nearly as much as a larger number on the centre right. There are many in the GSD who believe the party could have won the election if Caruana had done the decent thing and quit. Right now he impedes the party’s recovery and the setting out of a new agenda. In Parliament he is an embarrassment: Gibraltar’s answer to the bitter Tory Ted Heath. So as long as Caruana stalks around the better it is for the present government.

So let us move on to a post Caruana GSD which will come sooner or later: certainly not soon enough for Daniel Feetham. His brother, Nigel, is already a GSD guru but I suspect Daniel would like him alongside in parliament. I have a high regard for Nigel: don’t rule him out in the future CM stakes.

The current thinking is that the Feethams will dominate the GSD in the coming future: the very party that inflicted such pain on their father. Sometimes revenge is very sweet indeed.

However will the grand lords and ladies of the GSD willing follow the socialist Feethams? That is of course the key question of the next four years. Logically no: so we could see a return of Keith Azopardi to the ranks to calm their nerves or maybe Peter Montegriffo will ride in on a white charger – or being Gibraltar a rent-a-bike as once used by Joe Holliday.

There is of course an alternative: the PDP. There is only one GOP in Gibraltar to borrow the US parlance where it is the Republicans: the Grand Old Party here being the GSLP. All the other parties are relative Johnny-come-latelies. So when it dawns on the GSD rank and file that the political lunatics have taken over their asylum they can flee to the readymade PDP.

I have only crossed verbal swords with Daniel Feetham once and that was after the 2003 election which left the Labour Party with no seats. I suggested in writing that the Labour Party would not survive to see the next election: an angry Feetham countered Labour was forever. Well we know who was right and who was wrong: Daniel Feetham was and is a politician in a hurry and was never going to sit around nursing an unelected party.

However to Keith Azopardi’s credit that is just what he has done bringing the PDP to two elections without achieving a seat. He may have left the GSD in a fit of pique (is that what the Ps in PDP stand for?) as indeed did Feetham when he stormed out of the GSLP but when it came to founding a lasting party the laurels go to Azopardi.

Now Azopardi could find himself and his party on the verge of a major triumph. Whilst all the talk is of the former deputy chief minister rushing back to his former party and the subsequent collapse of the PDP here is another scenario. He stands his ground, the PDP opens its doors to the GSD members who know the ‘S’ doesn’t stand for socialist and the up to now fringe party becomes the new main party of opposition to the GSLP Liberals.

Too far-fetched? I am not so sure! If Montegriffo gave his support to his fellow former deputy chief minister, if an MP or two was tempted to defect, if the current party grandees decided the PDP not the GSD was the way to go we could witness a major sea change in Gibraltarian politics. It is certainly time for the PDP activists to hold their nerve and not drift away. Their future may well be bright: the future could be the PDP.

GOD IS ON OUR SIDE

I wonder how many soldiers have gone to their deaths over the centuries in which each side in the bloody conflict believed God was on their side? Religion should have no place in war and many would argue it has no place in politics either. Yet for many their Christianity is what drives their political convictions.

The Church of England is traditionally described as the Tory Party at prayer. However if you took the average congregation today it probably has little in common with the Conservative Party profile.

In the 19 th and 20 th centuries there was a mass migration from Ireland to Britain and the Irish, being Catholics, reinforced that church. As they were immigrants socialism was their natural political home and it is no coincidence that many leading Labour politicians over the years have had Irish surnames and are Catholics.

However Labour also drew much of its support from the Welsh valleys and industrial heartlands where chapel and non-conformist brands of Christianity held sway. F D Maurice, Ellen Wilkinson, George Lansbury, and Donald Soper all came from this rich tradition of Christian Socialists.

In May for the first time I visited Karl Marx’s tomb in Highgate Cemetery. To be honest I was drawn by a simple plaque nearby bearing the name of Ralph Miliband, the father of David and Ed. The distance from this section of the cemetery to the Catholic grammar school I attended in the 1960s was 20 minutes max. On Friday July 14 1961 Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, visited Karl Marx’s tomb as part of his visit to London and Manchester. As he was Russian, a Communist and an atheist - for weren’t all Russians Communists and atheists – the school totally ignored this historic event on our doorstep.

Yet with the fall of the iron curtain we find that the Orthodox Church in Russia never went away and today holds major influence in the country of Stalin. The Catholic Church in Poland even gave us one of the most popular modern Popes and its economic migrants to the UK are reinforcing the church there as the Irish did one hundred years ago. So Russian or Eastern Block they may have been, communist as well but atheist certainly not.

Two politicians, Tony Blair and Peter Caruana, demonstrate perfectly the tug of war between church and State. Blair, once a protestant, is married to Cherie Blair, a devout Catholic and it was no secret that Blair wanted to become a Catholic being received in to the Church shortly after he left office. Yet as Prime Minister he presided over a secular government introducing in to law a number of measures which incurred the anger and opposition of both the Church of England and the Catholic Church. As Alastair Campbell famously said: “We don’t do God”

In Gibraltar the Minister for Justice, Daniel Feetham, brought before parliament a private members bill over the age of consent for homosexuals. It was a private bill because Peter Caruana as a devout Catholic said he couldn’t support it. Hence we had the bizarre spectacle of the chief minister voting against a measure introduced by his own minister of justice. In addition we had other GSD ministers also opposing the measure although whether they were following their Lord spiritual or temporal is a moot point.

I raise this issue today because before me I have a number of leaflets one of which reads: “If this is how you want Gibraltar to suffer like the rest of Europe! Vote for Godless Socialism! GSLP/Lib. If you want to continue with the best Godly government Gbraltar (sic) has even had and enjoy 3 per cent unemployment! Vote GSD!”

Well the writer may want to warp Peter Caruana in the Shroud of Turin but I would argue the message is an insult to all religious people in Gibraltar. As far as I am aware we are all equal in the sight of our God, we all worship together and there are no GSD, GSLP, Liberal, PDP or political agnostic segregated pews in the Rock’s churches, chapels, temples, mosques or synagogues.

To pretend that all members of the GSLP are atheists is as false as believing in 1961 that all Russians were Godless. I don’t doubt the chief minister’s religious conviction but to suggest that all members of the GSD share his faith is ridiculous.

Many Christians are drawn to socialism because they believe passionately in social justice. Many Christian Socialists believe all people are created in the image of God, have equal worth, deserve equal opportunities to fulfil their God-given potential.

There are many Christian Socialists in the GSLP as there are many good Christians in the GSD. To suggest that God is on the side of one party over the other is simply unchristian.

THE PDP’S VOICE MUST BE HEARD

Gibraltar is a democracy and hence the PDP’s voice must be heard.

Of course every political party likes to steal a lead on its rivals and in major democracies they employ spin merchants and media spokespeople to ensure their voice is heard louder than their rivals. That is all part of the party game but what is not disputed is any party’s right to the airwaves or the print press.

For that reason anybody and everybody in Gibraltar who believes in democracy – be they GSD, GSLP, Liberal or non-aligned – should stand up for the right of the PDP to be able to get its message across.

I will not disagree with the GBC’s stance on giving airtime to Fabian Picardo and the GSLP in its Viewpoint programme. It was an audience winner for a variety of reasons. So when the GBC’s CEO Allen King said: “Joe Bossano stood down as GSLP party leader after more than 30 years, and there is great interest in the community as to what the change in the GSLP leadership will mean. By any standards, this is a major news story” it is hard not to agree with him.

The PDP is led by a former GSD deputy chief minister, Keith Azopardi, and should be up to the political game. Being an unelected party doesn’t help its media cause. So when it demands equal airtime with the GSLP to get its policies across it knows that is not going to happen. Instead it has to ensure that it feeds the GBC and others with “major news stories” then fight to have them aired or printed. If they are not then the party needs to speak out as it has done so in this case which, of course, creates just such a major news story.

However a general election will be soon upon us and the game will change. Mr King has stated: “every party will be given fair and impartial coverage”. The PDP has to ensure that is the case and they are not shunted aside because they are not currently an elected party.

In the 2010 UK general election the Labour, Conservative and Liberal leaders all took part in the televised debates because it was possible that any one of those parties could win the election. However party political broadcasts were also allocated to UKIP, the Greens, the English Democrats – whoever they may be, even the racist BNP plus all the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland regional parties. That is what freedom of speech is all about.

When the Gibraltar general election is declared if the PDP is putting up the same number of candidates as the GSD, GSLP-Liberal coalition – in other words it is a potential party of government - then it should be given an equal hearing and fully share in any debates or discussions.

The important thing is for the PDP to ensure it has that commitment from Mr King now because “every party will be given fair and impartial coverage” does not necessarily equate with “will be given equal airtime and the right to participate on an equal basis in all debates or party political broadcasts”. If that is in the least doubt then the time to argue the point and make a “major news story” is now not then.

There are many who fear for democracy in Gibraltar and the old saying is he who pays the piper plays the tune. GBC is funded by the government but the GBC has to ensure it speaks at all times - but especially at election time - for the people and not its paymaster, the party of power. For whilst the chief minister signs the cheque it is the people of Gibraltar who pay the bill including PDP supporters.