Finally On the Road to Greater Democracy?

The GSLP/Liberals have been accused, during the debate in Parliament, of not being serious about democratic reform by the GSD. It has also been accused of its proposals being "wooly" by others. I disagree with this criticism. There has also been much debate about "who said it first", by which I mean who made democratic reform proposals first. I find this point puerile and irrelevant.

It is a bit rich for the GSD to make its criticism of the GSLP/Liberals when it has been so remiss in the 16 years that it has been in power on giving effect to reforms. The GSD are quick to remind everyone of events and failings of the GSLP in the 8 years preceding 1996. Before doing so, it should be self-critical of its own admitted failings on the subject of democratic reforms.

It is no excuse to say that the failings of the pre-1996 GSLP government were greater. The GSD got into power with a promise to precisely to put right the wrong that then existed in terms of the perceived oppressiveness of the GSLP administration. It was to give us open, transparent and democratic government. Its failure on this front is of huge import as it was a central promise made by the GSD to put right a wrong committed by the GSLP that was so palpable at the time. 

Additionally, harping back to the past does not bode well for the GSD in this election. It is the GSD that has been in power for 16 years. It is the GSD who will be more susceptible to criticisms of past failings that are more recent and accordingly fresher in people's minds. A campaign that promises nothing new from the GSD will also not assist to improve its electoral chances. Negative and personally critical campaigning is also destructive and so anathema to democracy.

I do not believe that it is not enough for there to be a debate about systemic changes to the democratic process. I believe that there is a need also to change attitudes in politics by making issues and not personalities the subject of any campaign. Reforms to the political system can help to enhance this aim by creating a better environment for debating issues rather than personalities. It will not work, however, without a change in attitude. This change requires the locking up at home of personal dislikes by one against another and not allowing these to take over the election arguments. The reforms will certainly not help to reduce personality based criticisms at the forthcoming election because no reforms will be enacted or were intended by any politician would be enacted by that time.

The position of each of the three main parties on reforms is now clear. The PDP have published extensive reform proposals, the GSD have forced a motion through Parliament with less extensive reforms that in my opinion are not sufficiently wide ranging. Also they have not been properly thought through. The GSLP/Liberals have published an intent to establish an independent commission to look into and recommend reforms of the electoral system and to Parliament. The breadth of the terms of reference of that independent commission are staggeringly wide. Wider than the proposals of both the GSD and the PDP.

It is impossible to justify a criticism of the GSLP/Liberals being "wooly"on this issue without implying by that same criticism a simultaneous belief that, if the GSLP/Liberals were to form government after the next election, it would not enact any reforms. Is such a criticism sustainable? I do not believe it it is. It would mean that a newly elected government would be ignoring the very central policy that it seems to be gearing up to fight the forthcoming election on. Such behaviour would be cynical and disdainful of the electorate. It would simply guarantee a new GSLP/Liberal administration an election loss at the immediately next following election, not least, because the other parties would immediately fill the gap left by that administration by its own ommission. It is for this reason that the GSLP/Liberals, also, cannot be criticised for supposedly not being serious about democratic reforms.

The important place that has been reached by Gibraltar is that democratic reforms of some sort will now happen because all the parties have put it on their agenda. The reality is that only those politicians who form a government can legislate to put these in place. The decision that has to be taken at the next election, therefore is who will  actually effect changes? Will it be a party, the GSD, that has failed to do so in breach of its promise over 16 years of government? Will it be the PDP, or will it be stymied by the impossibility of it forming government? Or will it be the GSLP/Liberals who will take advice from an independent commission before deciding what reforms to adopt and give effect to?

Oh, to those who do  not believe that there are no suitable independent minded persons in Gibraltar to form part of the independent commission, you cannot possibly then be believers in Gibraltar's ability to govern itself at all. Your criticism, to be sustainable, would need to extend to any of the judiciary, the civil service, the Ombudsman and any other tribunal or committee or authority established by law. I am not so cynical. If those critics were to be right, the whole reform debate is an irrelevance and a waste of time and Gibraltar could never aspire to self-determination.