Keith Azopardi:   A Party Animal One of the enduring subjects among the piazza and café bars in Gibraltar is how political parties seem to ebb and flow like the tide we would have if we lived beyond the Mediterranean Sea. From the AACR to the GNP, NGD, GSD, GLP, GSLP through to the party formed around 18 months ago the Progressive Democratic Party, PDP for short. Young they may be but pedigree they have, not least in their leader, the subject of this month’s interview, Keith Azopardi. As usual in these interviews it is more about the person than the politics but talking to Keith you get the impression that politics is the person. Born in 1967 in Gibraltar, Keith came from a fairly standard working class background. His father, a Gibraltarian, worked most of his life in the dockyard, a job that Keith says he did because that generation had little choice. “You worked wherever you could to put food on the table. My generation and subsequent generations can actually choose the line of work they’d like to be in. If that doesn’t work out because of education or a change of mind then you have a much wider chance to do something else.” His father worked at the dockyard until he retired. His mother was born in Rabat because her mother was an evacuee from Gibraltar during the war. She worked in the home as a housewife again out of necessity. Most of Keith’s early childhood he remembers being spent in the closed border Gibraltar. In fact only once during that time were the family, which also included a sister, able to leave Gibraltar for a small holiday in London. They lived on the Alameda Estate and as part of the catchment area he attended Bishop Fitzgerald School. He left with 9 ‘O’ levels and, being one of about 15 pupils from Bayside School that, in those days, were awarded a scholarship, he gained enough points at ‘A’ level to attend University in the UK. “I started on a degree at Keele University in Staffordshire. The degree was in Law and Economics but I was bored with economics and substituted it with History. I’ve always loved history. It was the right decision and I wrote my dissertation on Irish History particularly Michael Collins the Irish nationalist.” I asked Keith how his interest in politics was awakened? “Well as a child there was always a lot of talk about unions and unionism. I grew up in the parity struggle and have vivid memories of those times and the strikes and power-cuts of the time. This kind of thing was very much of that period even my university was nicknamed the ‘Kremlin on the Hill’ because of the leftist leanings of the place. “I’ve always been more centrist in my outlook and always felt from very young that I would want to get involved in politics sooner or later. “What is important is to provide equality of opportunity. I believe in meritocracy, you get what you work for. I also think it is the job of Government to build good public services — that is all part of this philosophy of equality of opportunity which allows people to then have access to services and progress personally.” So why did you decide on being a lawyer? I asked. “Well I had a pragmatic approach in so much as I wanted to return to Gibraltar and looked around to see what I could do to probably get a job when I returned and the law provided that. I wanted to be a pilot many years ago but at 15 it was clear I wouldn’t be able to as I don’t see very well. Still unlike my father, I had a choice and I just seemed to settle on law but I couldn’t say exactly why. “When I was growing up I was very interested in constitutional history and government. I admired several centrist figures in UK politics and also Adolfo Suarez, again a centrist politician who helped steer Spain towards democracy after the death of the Franco regime. So politics was always an interest for me.” Leaving Keele and passing the Bar exam in ’89/’90 Keith returned to Gibraltar and started work at Marrache and Co. After a while he moved on to Hassans and stayed there for about a year. Around this time his school friendship with Joe Garcia meant he was involved in the early days of the GNP, the forerunner of the Liberal Party. He stood for his first election in January 1992 but left the GNP the following October. Before that election Hassans told him that he had to choose between being involved in politics or staying in the firm. Although not an easy decision Keith had to follow his belief and he decided to leave Hassans. “I wanted to get into politics and I had to see it through, I have been involved now for 17 years. Subsequently in December 1992 Peter Caruana asked me to join the GSD. I told him that the main issue was that I believed in tripartite, open agenda dialogue and that the Brussels Agreement needed to be clarified to ensure it was not pre-determined and could be restructured and that the UK did not consider that the UN Resolutions of the 1960s were binding on it. “After some months Mr Caruana was able to obtain written assurances on all those questions from the Minister of State at the Foreign Office in 1993 and this cleared the way for me to join the GSD. Indeed the GSD changed its stance on Brussels to require a restructure of any process of dialogue to ensure that it would be tripartite and on an open agenda before it would attend. “Proof of the change of policy was the fact that even though in Government that restructure was attempted we never attended talks between 1996-’03 because we did not think our terms had been met. “I was very fortunate to gain a lot of experience during my time with the GSD having served as Minister for Health, one of the big social ministries and then subsequently at the D.T.I. and financial services — one of the big economic engines. During the last four years I was also Deputy Chief Minister and very involved in the political issues such as the fight against the joint-sovereignty talks and the constitutional negotiations from their inception in 1998 right till the end in 2006.” I asked him “What happened to change all that and leave the GSD?” As he looked at me I thought; I bet he’s been asked that question a few times. “When I did not stand for election in 2003 I stayed within the GSD and on its Executive. I believed the Party had to regenerate itself and its policies from within and that this would happen eventually. Unfortunately in 2005 a merger was proposed with the Labour Group which I thought was the reverse of what we needed to do. At the time many of the GSD candidates were getting older and would have moved on in the years to come. I just thought that a Labour Group with younger personalities would in the course of a few years take those positions and totally change the face of the GSD. I believed and still do that slowly the direction of the GSD would change inexorably as a result of the merger and I couldn’t in all conscience live with that so I resigned. “If the Labour merger had not happened things could have been quite different and I would probably have stayed and put my name forward in due course but circumstances forced me to leave.” “What about family and how do you relax with all this paper and legalise flying around?” I wondered. “Well I have been married for 12 years now to Zoe, we have two girls Zita aged 8 and Asta who is 6. Zita was named after a Great Aunt of my wife and is an Italian name in origin. Asta is a Scandinavian name that our daughter Zita loved from a storybook we bought her. We looked into the name and decided it was a great name so we kept it. Other than the family I also love sport and I am a big fan of West Ham United.” “Oh you’re an ‘Iron’?” I asked. “Have you ever been down the Roman Road and tried the Pie and Mash?” “No I haven’t,” he said looking at me puzzled. “Well down the Roman Road, a street not far from Upton Park (which is West Ham’s ground) there is a selection of Pie and Mash shops. These serve the cockney traditional pie and mash potato served with a thin green looking gravy that they call liquor.” Keith vowed to try it on his next trip so I dropped the subject and asked him what else he does to relax. “It’s not just football, I like cricket and many other sports. I also enjoy running to keep fit, I tend to run between 10 and 20 km which I prefer. I also indulge my real passion which is Commonwealth history and where it overlaps with Constitutional Law. I recently finished a Doctorate on Constitutional Law and particularly on civil rights and commonwealth constitutional development issues which is my big interest on the legal side. On the creative side I’ll admit to always wanting to learn to play the saxophone.” After taking some time out Keith has recently returned to politics with the emergence of the PDP and their showing at the last election is there to see. “The results were not unexpected for a brand new party. This was a close election and the last Bossano-Caruana mano a mano as Mr Bossano has announced that he will not be the GSLP leader at the next election. It takes time for Parties to make the breakthrough and we will have that stamina. “At one time the GSLP were the third party, then the GSD were the third party. Both of them eventually got into government. The PDP are now Gibraltar’s third party and I believe in four years time the results will be dramatically different. The dynamic of the next election will be entirely different. We will have been around for five years and will present a full candidature and clear policies that we will have had time to explain. “Added to that Joe Bossano is retiring so whether or not Peter Caruana stands there will be an entirely new dynamic to Gibraltar politics and it is something we can take advantage of. People who voted GSD to keep Mr Bossano out can look unhindered to other choices and equally Mr Bossano’s supporters can look to other choices because he will not be on the ballot paper. “We want to be the preferred choice of both those groups who want a change and want positive politics. We don’t get involved in the mud slinging. I just think Gibraltar needs to be governed differently to the way it has up to now and we will show we can do that. At the end of the day whatever happens I would be deeply disappointed if my role in politics has already been played out because I think we have a real contribution to make. The PDP and I don’t intend for that to happen.”

ned and Produced by JD Web Solutions