This month marks the tenth
anniversary of the GSD in Government, has it really been ten years? I can
recall that election quite clearly as a then much younger political activist
and member of the GNP, The Gibraltar National Party. Our party had already
contested one election before I had joined the ranks and this time round we had
a new leader in Dr. Joseph Garcia and one of our original members Keith
Azopardi had left us and joined the GSD also taking a place in their line up.
The GNP had gained quite a following since its baptism of fire in the 1992
elections and we were eagerly awaiting the chance to contest another election,
all a touch older and wiser.
Preparing for an election is a
rollercoaster because one never knows exactly when it will be called and what
burning issues may arise in the meantime, you can’t roll off a manifesto in
advance as it could easily be out of date come election time, as they say: ‘a
week is a long time in politics’. Having said that, when I read our 1996 election
manifesto now much of it is still relevant today, ten years on and many good
ideas that we were espousing then are still yet to materialise. As a party we
sat down and thrashed out each section of the manifesto in fine detail, hours
were spent debating all aspects of each ministry as everyone around the table
had their say. Eventually, after a good deal of arguing and table rapping the
document was finally agreed upon and sent to print. It is at this point when a
party’s machinery really comes into action, standing over a heavy duty printer
in the back of a stuffy office is no picnic and then you have the filtering,
the folding, the sending and the posting by hand around to as many homes as
possible. All this has to be carried out voluntarily in one’s spare time and
coupled with a great expectation that all these efforts will prove fruitful at
the ballot box, this is the drive that keeps the team going. Then you have the
hustings; getting hold of a PA system and a van and parking up in each of the estates,
Flat Bastion Road, Calpe, The Piazza on a Saturday morning. When I watched my
colleagues who were standing for election stand there cold and ad-lib a
political monologue I could feel their exposure and nerves; but with each
husting their confidence grew and the rousing applause from the gathered crowd
bolstered their delivery enabling them to relax into their performance.
After the usual interviews,
debates and party meetings Election Day draws closer, and for that one day
alone the party organisation has to be spot on. Outside each polling station
there has to be a party member handing out dummy ballots, printed in the party
colours with the assumption that the voter who grabs it from your hand will
stick all his eight crosses alongside your party’s candidates. Presumption or
assumption, it may seem ridiculous but all parties hand out the dummy ballots
in the vain hope that some people may not know who to vote for and will use
your ballot as a guide! Standing outside a polling station for hours can be
demeaning and it is also a bit weird as one is standing alongside activists
from all the other parties and you all make polite small talk with each other;
nobody talks politics, it’s all weather related or a comment on the need for
refreshment. The party sustenance van does the rounds, brimming with comforting
familiar faces, sandwiches and the good old stainless steel tea urn. Later your
shift would change and you’d be posted off to the South District or St.
Bernard’s School to oversee the last hour; all those people who naturally leave
things to the last minute rushing frantically to their nearest station. The
electorate are a funny old bunch, now and again a car full of youths will drive
by leaning out the window shouting obscenities; they are old enough to drive
but will they bother to vote? Then you have those people who refuse to take
your ballot paper and snub you with a comment like “I know who I am
voting for!” I prefer the ‘politely take one of each’ approach myself. Most
magnificent of all are the elderly couples who don their Sunday best and walk
to the polling station arm in arm as if attending a Royal ceremony, this public
event only happens once every four years after all.
It is now approaching 11pm and
the sealed ballot boxes are driven by police escort to the John Mackintosh Hall
and unloaded into the gym. Not everybody is allowed in the gym and it is here
where you first notice the election night pecking order of who’s allowed to go
where and who’s not. One party member can stand by each box and hurriedly scan
the ballot papers as they are filtered out, each member can then collate their
information and even then you can have a good idea of the final outcome. The
same idea is carried out in greater detail by standing in each counting room and
making a tally of the votes as the evening progresses. It serves no real
purpose and cannot affect the end result but what else are you going to do to
wile away the hours on what in always a very long and exhausting night?
Back then in 1996 the
predominant feeling was that the GSLP would win, who else was there to contend
them? We knew we were popular and we had a lot of support but the general
opinion was that we were too young to be taken seriously. Most people tend to
vote for either one of the main two parties, but there weren’t two main parties
this time. The AACR had long lost its political pull and the GSD were as new a
party as we were. We, despite our youth or maybe because of it, thought we had
a chance to squeeze in as opposition. The GSD had not been at all popular in
the preceding years and they had only recently experienced the Peter Cummings
saga; but then Peter Montegriffo ‘came back’ and suddenly, despite a dreary
little manifesto printed on one piece of A4, they managed to get into government
with Peter Montegriffo himself topping the poll. Whoever said that one man
doesn’t make or break a political party?
Six o’clock in the morning with
two party members snoring in the corner of our designated room, the mood was
despondent. Our party did well but didn’t get a look in at the House of
Assembly, and Gibraltar had elected a government that was to all intents and
purposes, pro-Spanish. That was the mood on that night because the GSD had not,
and would not reject the Brussels agreement. They have now, even if it has not
been said in those exact terms, so we can glean some victory in that what most
worried us most in terms of the then GSD foreign policy we managed to overturn.
When I say we, I mean the
GSLP/Liberal Alliance opposition. Our second defeat in an election as the GNP
didn’t mean we would disband and give up politics with some members joining
other parties; we stuck together and decided to use the hindrance of youth to
make in roads elsewhere for the better good of Gibraltar. Thus we joined
international youth parties who held the nearest ideology to our own which was
Liberal and through the youth connection we became aware that we could spread
the word and the Gibraltar story outside of the Gibraltar-Britain-Spain
triangle. As full members of such organisations we were given an equal platform
and say, and had a chance to debate not only the Gibraltar question but all the
other European and International issues; it broadened our minds as young
Gibraltarians and gave us the experience of dealing with other nations at a
high level as from the youth wing we branched into the senior wings and were
then able to influence and input into senior Liberal resolutions. The youth
which held us back in the eyes of our electorate in 1996 soon faded as it does
with all of us, and the once twentysomething upstarts fast became
thirtysomething upstarts. Our decision to form an Alliance with the GSLP
further marked our political maturity, as political friends and allies
especially on foreign policy, we gradually exchanged ideas coming to the
sensible conclusion that working together and forming a mixed opposition would
be beneficial to us as politicians and to Gibraltar as a whole; the electorate
who are gridlocked between two main parties could at least have some form of
variety.
Ten years on I feel that the
1996 election was the turning point for our GNP party, we were young and
inexperienced but we battled the storm and took defeat on the chin. Our party
re-grouped and decided that a metamorphosis coupled with some hard work,
experience and most of all patience would warrant the necessary respect from
our electorate in the future. When that future will be, who knows, but our core
party has been around and stuck together for 14 years, we listened to what the
electorate told us and we acted upon it. Ten years of GSD government may seem
comfortable for some of us, familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt; but many
of us are feeling the pinch and dare I say it an itch which will one day need
to be scratched. Youth was not on our side ten years ago but with age and
experience the youth that gave doubt back then is now the stable foundation for
better things to come.
Comments
Post a Comment