Governments in Gibraltar stick around for a looooong time. My father, for example, was in power for the best part of 40 whopping years, in which Gibraltar developed from a meek colony into the proud, free nation we are today. Even though most of those 40 years were spent actually building a democracy where there was none, I am well aware that such a long tenure in the present context would raise many eyebrows.

Since then we have continued a tendency to have abnormally lengthy administrations, that are brought to an end only after a descent into authoritarianism and sleaze. After my father came two terms of “Bossanismo”, whose demise was expedited for allowing Gibraltar to spiral into dystopian “contrabando” chaos, then 16 years of Sir Peter’s capable iron fist, and 12 of Fabian Picardo’s “velvet” glove. If, as most pundits predict, the GSLP win another term in office (hold on to your hats!), this will take him up to another 16-year, 4-term tenure to match that of Caruana’s GSD. It will also round off another classic Gibraltarian political play in four acts, which goes a little something like this:

ACT 1: Honeymoon

ACT 2: Reforms and big spending

ACT 3: Corruption and nepotism

ACT 4: Authoritarianism, descent into chaos

This dynamic is commonly expressed by the maxim (with a local twist) “In Gibraltar, politicians don’t win elections, they lose them” which I 100% agree with.

But why does political change in Gibraltar always have to be so traumatic?

I believe the main reason for this is our flawed electoral system, which, when combined with our good ol’ endemic political issues, creates an almost insurmountable advantage for the party in Government. Here is a list with what I see as the main problems affecting the effective delivery of democratic change by our electoral system.

Lack of proportionality.

It is undeniable that our electoral system favours the existing political establishment. I don’t think it was designed to do this, and for a while it might have given Gibraltar the stability it needed to lay its national foundations, but it is clear that the system has become obsolete and propagates serious democratic deficits. It is absurd for a single, 7 square-kilometre constituency, to have a (sort of) first-past-the-post system which annihilates new parties at the gates of parliament. That 20.5% of the overall vote granted to Together Gibraltar produced a single MP, while the 25.5% of the GSD earned them six seats is simply indefensible. Proportionality of representation might prove slightly more challenging to manage, but it would provide more democratic outcomes, incentivise the creation of new parties and contribute to more dynamic transfers of power.

Political repression.

Talk to your friends and family about the political situation in Gibraltar today, and unless they happen to be GSLP stalwarts, I’m pretty sure they will agree that it stinks. Now ask them to get involved…

Taking a stand in Gibraltar can be costly, particularly when the GSLP are in power. They can be absolutist and vindictive, using every cog of the machinery of the state to quash political rivals. If you have a business they might not give you contracts. If you are unemployed they probably won’t give you a job. If you are in need of a home you will likely not be very high in their priority list. The threat of repression makes our democracy sclerotic, because a regime that has the power to dissuade its citizens from speaking out is extremely hard to challenge, and ultimately defeat.

Nepotism and Corruption.

Political parties are often much more than MPs and their cadres. They have connections, funders and “supporters” circling the centres of power waiting for a slice of the pie. When a party comes into Government their “electricians” immediately step in, swiftly unplugging the circuit of “enchufes” left behind by the previous administration and setting up a new one made up of their own friends and allies. The most savvy and powerful lobbies make sure they are hooked-up to every political grid, thus ensuring their influence regardless of who is in power.

This also applies to individuals in high places. Members of boards, executive committees, media outlets, trusteeships of influential organisations… place enough of your acolytes in the spaces of power and you will have control. Use that control intelligently and it will ensure your political longevity.

Political exploitation of the civil service.

The civil service is constantly subjected to political manipulation. Workers in the system are silenced by an abusive code of conduct that limits their political freedoms, and are routinely exploited to further partisan agendas. The way the Government press office is used to trash political adversaries and push the GSLP narrative is a paradigmatic example of this.

Having the power to manipulate the civil service amounts to having a political ace up your sleeve, as the public sector employs some of the most qualified, experienced and talented minds in the community. These workers can be used to, for example, research policy and write manifestos, using inside knowledge of the system that only they possess.

Lack of funding for political parties

This is perhaps the most costly of all the “savings” in our national budget, as well as an important root of corruption and inefficacy.

A couple of years ago we funded an abortion referendum campaign, giving each side 50 thousand, hard-earned taxpayers pounds. It was a campaign that, judging by the robustness of the the pro-choice victory, did not move the needle in practical terms. It was also another iteration of a campaign we had already witnessed several times across the world, with the same tired arguments being regurgitated over and over again.

Our Government thought it wise to fund our abortion referendum campaign, but it thinks it is a waste of money to fund the elections that determine who controls the entire national budget and who has the capacity to change the legal status of abortion without a referendum.

We then set a spending limit of 30 thousand pounds in our General elections which barely covers the printing and distributing of election manifestos, and we allow parties, particularly the incumbent party (with control of all public resources) to flout the rules in broad daylight.

“Mediocracy” - an egotistical political culture.

One of the most common attacks I receive is that I fail to provide alternatives to the issues I criticise. I believe that this is not only an unfair criticism, but one that propagates a culture of mediocre policy-making that goes against our best interests. We have the tendency to forget that, despite being a community that often punches above its weight, Gibraltar is a small town with obvious limitations, where certain highly qualified, specialist skills are hard to come by.

Policy is the bread-and-butter of Governance, and few things require a more sophisticated, specialised skillset than effective policy-making - a skillset that local politicians, myself included, simply do not possess. Even Fabian Picardo and his ministers for all their confidence and bluster, are not policy-makers of the caliber that their job requires. Fortunately, the Government knows this better than anybody, and often uses the resources of the state to outsource the skills it needs to craft Gibraltar-specific policy. The rest of the time they copy-paste UK legislation into local law, importing laws that have been developed by large teams of highly qualified experts.

Efficient policy-making however, is a slow and very costly process, and therefore one that is not applied across the board. There are many areas in which policy is drafted in knee-jerk fashion by brazen ministers who think they know best, or worse still by imported advisers who rarely last long in their post. The calamitous handling of the GHA by this administration is a case in point, and the parade of ministers, advisors and failed overhauls are a tragic reminder of the real cost of mediocre policy-making.

That Governments outsource specialised policy-making skills is a good thing, however in our electoral context it puts the opposition at a serious disadvantage. To provide the right kind of proposal to fix, for example, the flaws in our electoral system, would require a team of experts working round the clock for months, analysing every precedent, exploring every possibility and conjuring up innovative, novel approaches. This is inaccessible to parties with no funding, in a place where these expert skills are close to non-existent.

What Gibraltar does have in abundance is messianic mediocrities capable of single-handedly fixing all our problems, and funnily enough most of them happen to be wealthy male lawyers. Inflated egos with “small-pond syndrome” who consistently produce unremarkable ideas and bully opponents with their infinite entitlement, fuelling an egotistical political culture where many Gibraltarians of virtue feel unwelcome.

Conclusions

We have a system that creates enormous hurdles for new parties, grants elected Governments absolute power, allows Governments to spuriously control the economy, abuse public institutions and manipulate the civil service, and where massive political repression happens routinely.

We also have a bunch of local politicians with very limited policymaking expertise trying to fix these problems. We give them no money to campaign or outsource skills, and we set a campaign spending limit which barely covers the most basic expenses.

Finally, we throw all these ridiculously ill-matched rivals into the ring and watch…

The result? A low-grade democracy in which parties flout electoral laws, where lobbies are not only tolerated but expected to fund political campaigns, where personalist politics has more weight than policy proposals, and where the incumbent party enjoys an almost insurmountable advantage.

I know this because I have been there. We spent most of our budget on manifesto printing. We were offered uncomfortable campaign donations, which we rejected in favour of transparent crowd-funding.

And I have experienced the frustration of seeing the GSLP’s flying circus take over town with their musical vans, producing posters, leaflets and brochures, most of which never registered as campaign spending but as favours to be redeemed when the time is right.

Proposals

With all of this I do not mean to say that parties should give up trying to persuade the electorate. Together Gibraltar has always tried to be proactive with its ideas, providing from the outset a defined, progressive alternative to the parties of the establishment. We have brought diversity to the debate, tabled constructive proposals, discussed the salient issues of our time with courage, and taught the oldies a thing or two about communication in the digital age.

Unfortunately this is not enough, and unless things change profoundly, it will take another descent into chaos, corruption and authoritarianism before another party can correct the perilous course we are navigating.

For this reason I would like to propose a simple list of “principle-based” political proposals, which can be turned into streamlined policy the moment we (or any other party that wishes to take them on board) find ourselves in a position to outsource razor-sharp policymaking prowess.

1 - Put in place a system of proportional representation.

2 - Limit the tenure of Chief Ministers (the fact that our politics is highly personalised means that the longer the tenure of the CM, the tighter the stronghold on power, the tighter the network of “enchufes”, the longer the list of punishable dissidents etc.)

3 - Provide adequate funding for political parties (and election campaigns) and independently audit all campaign expenses (including “in kind” contributions).

4 - Enact an incompatibility law to combat the obvious “revolving door” problem that exists between Government and strategic economic sectors.

5 - Legislate to further protect public resources (including the civil service) from partisan, electoral abuse.

Speak soon,

Marlene