I’ve been promising I’ll get around to addressing this pressing issue for a while now.
It’s finally happening.
For years, it’s been amply clear that a third of the electorate feels politically orphaned. The duopoly groans beneath the weight of the contradictions that held it together for so many years.
On one hand, we have the governing Labour Party, a monstrous criminal syndicate that turned Malta into a mafia state. Their latest gambit to bring every rogue developer in Malta onside serves as yet another example of how corrupt they all are.
On the other, we have the Nationalist Party, the one that managed to kill itself in front of the entire electorate. Their ongoing leadership election, castrated by the party’s own electoral commission, inspires as much hope as a broken lighthouse.
Judging from the government’s predictable roll out of feelgood propaganda, general elections are close at hand.
Given this dire context, I promised my readers I would sit down with representatives from ADPD and Partit Momentum, two political parties who are vying to make it to Parliament.
As far as breaking the duopoly goes, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
ADPD has been the perennial underdog of Maltese politics since its inception, providing the only stroke of green politics in a landscape dominated by red and blue colours.
Partit Momentum, born out of the independent support garnered by former AD chairman Arnold Cassola during his last run for European Parliament, promises to be an additional grassroots alternative.
Should any one of their candidates be elected, it would be the first time anyone’s ever managed to get elected to Parliament on a ticket that is independent of both major parties.
On Monday, I sat down with Momentum’s secretary-general Mark Camilleri Gambin and ADPD’s chairperson Sandra Gauci.
A photo of ADPD chairperson Sandra Gauci. Photo credit: Mariah Ivié Cutajar
A candid photo snapped before the interview with Sandra Gauci. Photo credit: Mariah Ivié Cutajar
A photo of Partit Momentum secretary-general Mark Camilleri Gambin. Photo credit: Mariah Ivié Cutajar
A photo of a post-interview chat with Mark Camilleri Gambin. Photo credit: Mariah Ivié Cutajar
My goal was to understand whether these two parties can seriously offer the elusive alternative that so many people are desperately searching for.
I’ll be upfront about it – I wasn’t expecting much.
Besides the electoral system’s structural bias against pluralism in parliament, both parties face enormous challenges on every front: the general public’s failure to consider them as a serious option, their collective lack of experience in government, and the massive disparity in financing and electoral firepower when compared to the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, to name a few.
In my personal opinion, the only way Momentum and ADPD can overcome these challenges is by putting their heads together and coming up with a solid cross-party platform.
In spite of the fact that their positions on many prominent issues are practically identical, ADPD and Momentum have publicly steered clear of each other. The obvious risk is the further fragmentation of an already tiny third party vote.
Which begs the question: are the leading figures of these parties willing to work together to give the major parties a real run for their money?
Well, in our books, anyone who has the guts to credibly challenge the rotten state of our politics deserves a shot at it as much any other pretentious claimant from the country’s major parties.
In a special couplet of episodes focused on alternative Maltese politics, we asked both representatives about these crucial talking points. The interviews were shot in Maltese, but we’ll also provide a transcript of the interview in English in the accompanying article on this website.
While I won’t spoil the fun by teasing too much about what was discussed, I can safely say that I walked away from these interviews with more respect than I would afford to most politicians after spending an hour asking them pointed questions. If you read any of my work, you know that amounts to high praise coming from me.
This production was paid for entirely out of pocket by myself and Mariah Ivié Cutajar, who co-produced these two interviews with me from start to finish. We did so because we firmly believe in the importance of providing this public service in a frayed political landscape.
Given that we had no funding for this production and will be doing all additional work for it in between paid projects, we aim to publish both interviews by Sunday 24 August but may need to publish the following week (31 August). We’d rather wait a while longer if the delay leads to a higher quality product.
In the meantime, please consider making our life easier by donating here. Your support for independent journalism is appreciated and will help expedite the process by buying us more coffee.
Thank you, Julian and Mariah.
Regarding ADPD and Momentum joining forces, while yes, of course, strength lies in numbers, I think that the abortion issue is a major sticking point. I look forward to listening to the interviews since I’m quite confident that you addressed the issue with them.