Ideological and strategic shifts from old labour to new labour in Malta

Abstract

On emerging victors in the general elections held on October 26th, 1996, the Malta Labour Party gave the impression that it was going to create a modern Malta, which would once and for all do away with patronage and partisan politics. New Prime Minister Alfred Sant had previously managed to cleanse his Party of its violent imagery, transforming the Malta Labour Party from one which was associated with arrogant governments lead by an authoritarian yet charismatic leader, Dom Mintoff, to a modernised party led by a relatively young and modern leader who accepted to work with all those who wanted to modernise Malta. Labour gave the impression that it was ready to work for the Citizen and not only for Labourites. New Labour only managed to stay in power for twenty-two months. Sant’s government, which had a one-seat parliamentary majority, faced an imminent problem: unsustainable national debt. His government tackled this problem by means of austerity measures, and this, together with a parliamentary rebellion by Dom Mintoff himself, as well as other factors, led to the downfall of the New Labour government in 1998. Dom Mintoff, the symbol of the Malta Labour Party for around half a century, no longer remained ‘the saviour’ for Labourites. He became a traitor. At the same time, Alfred Sant’s hold on the Party remained as strong as ever. When New Labour lost the general elections on September 5th, 1998, I was looking for a research topic for the main part of my Masters Degree in Sociology. New Labour was a temptation I could not resist. iv Hence, I decided to compare the Malta Labour Party under Sant with that under Dom Mintoff and his successor Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. I wanted to carry out a sociological analysis, free as much as possible from myth and propaganda, to analyse the similarities and the contrasts between ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Labour. I thought that the best way to do this was to analyse the ideological and strategic shifts from the one (Old Labour) to the other (New Labour). It has taken me three long years to carry out this study, and I had never assumed that there would be so many complexities on the issue. I found out that, as far as the Malta Labour Party from 1971 to 1998 is concerned, change is neither a simple question of shifts nor a mere evolutionary process. It could include elements of both. Indeed, in this thesis it will be argued that various strategic and ideological shifts have taken place from Old Labour to New Labour. These include ideological shifts in economic policy and the role of the state as well as strategic shifts in political strategy and class and party interests. It will also be argued that on the other hand, Old Labour and New Labour shared common evolutionary features such as the ideological emphasis on the primacy of (industrial) economy, nationalism and the welfare state, and in the degree of power of the leader within the Party. In this thesis I have given much importance to the political and economic changes which took place in Malta between the 1970s and the 1990s, as well as to the value-systems in Malta during these years. v I feel that this study not only puts forward an analysis of one of the most interesting political topics of late twentieth century Malta, but also makes an interesting reading because the phenomenon of modernisation of Social Democratic parties is global, ranging from Britain to New Zealand, and from Brazil to South Africa. Indeed, I hope that the study can prove itself useful to those analysing social change both within Malta as well as for comparative purposes with processes of change in other societies.