As the needle in the thermometer increases one tends to automatically deviate his attention away from local politics and focus more on enjoying summer together with his loved ones. This is the time where BBQ’s replace meetings and take centre stage in our social lives, the time when I’m sure everyone would prefer to swap the suit to a more summery outfit and go for a lovely walk along the promenade.
One place were a suit is always appropriate is definitely Parliament. That grandiose building that we should all be proud of. During these warm summer months it seems that Joseph Muscat is doing all that is necessary to hide behind the summer lull.
Just for a moment, go back a few years. Prior to the last general election to be exact. Do you remember how often we’ve seen a debate between Joseph Muscat and Lawrence Gonzi? With that in mind, do you remember when the last debate between Joseph Muscat and Simon Busuttil was? No? Neither do I.
It’s been two years since Joseph Muscat faced Simon Busuttil in a debate on Xarabank, two years of shying away from facing Simon Busuttil live on TV for everyone to see. It’s definitely not in Joseph Muscat’s nature to hide from some publicity, however it surely seems to be his nature to shy away from a debate that is likely to expose him to criticism.
Recently PN proposed that once a week the Prime Minister will have a 30 minute time-window in which he answers questions from the MP’s. In the UK this is commonly known as PMQ’s (Prime Minister’s Questions) and it is a very interesting event in which the Prime Minister needs to answer questions put to him from the Member of Parliament. In a normal democracy, every Prime Minister will grasp the opportunity to be given 30 minutes of limelight in which he can demonstrate what his government is doing for the country, however unfortunately in Malta, our current Prime Minister prefers to hide away behind the Parliamentary Question’s mechanism which allows his ministers to dodge the importance of the questions by giving out generic answers which normally doesn’t answer a lot of the question asked in the first place.
This once again puts Joseph Muscat’s credentials in questioning. If Joseph Muscat is so proud of the work currently done by his cabinet, why is he refusing such a transparent proposal that will give him the opportunity to answer these questions?
As it stands today, just 6 months after Michael Falzon resigned from his role as Parliamentary Secretary, Joseph Muscat is not capable of taking action against him in the wake of his continuous, ferocious attack on the Auditor General who is an independent institution.
During these warm summer months, when everyone’s attention is deviated from Parliament it seems that Joseph Muscat took the opportunity to hide as well, hide from his duty to answer from the actions of his cabinet and to make himself available to answer questions in Parliament. Let’s just hope that when the temperatures start cooling once again, Joseph Muscat will do his suit justice and start walking in the shoes that he’s wearing. Maybe who knows? We might get to watch a leader’s debate live on Xarabank before we get to watch the 100th episode dedicated to Ġiġa’s story!
