If they could, they’d turn Malta into Turkey
And quite frankly, we’re getting there rapidly.
www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com
The gang at the top are fighting for their survival, using a mass of trolls, paid or unpaid, a large army of party apparatchiks and ‘persons of trust’, and the services of a now countless number of cronies who just want to keep wallowing in the trough of public funds, and to hell with good governance, the rule of law and Malta’s credibility, which is so crucial for investment, and its international reputation.
Muscat’s decision to call such a premature general election has backfired badly in the international media, which have linked it directly to the Panama scandal involving his office. He had planned this general election before the Egrant story broke on 20 April – the Labour Party had been preparing already and people put on standby – but the European newspapers and even the Maltese public are not to know that. Muscat is so accustomed to controlling the flow of information and media reports in Malta that it never occurred to him that the key European media would immediately link his early election with the scandals that swirl about him and those closest to him, and that this would lead to extensive reportage not of the general election itself, but of what – in those European journalists’ view – must have prompted it.
I have written this before but it bears repeating again. It’s only going to get worse because Muscat did not call the general election because of the Egrant scandal. He was already planning to call it for the end of May or the beginning of June when that story broke.
This means that there is something looming large – something about to blow up – which he fears badly enough to be willing to shave almost a year off his time in power to gain another five years. At this stage, and having looked at all the possibilities, I think it can only be Air Malta’s impending bankruptcy. The national airline is technically bankrupt already, but now things have got to come to a head. It can’t be sold, it can’t be state-funded, it owes millions and it’s servicing its routes using wetleased planes that don’t fly under the Air Malta brand, including converted cargo planes and post planes.
Muscat’s failure to find a solution for Air Malta, and its impending implosion, would mean a massive haemorrhage of votes leading to a possible electoral loss should he wait until the autumn to call an election. The most important factor to him, giving his overbearing self-interest, would not be the loss of votes or even the disruption to connections which the final collapse of the national airline would bring about. Muscat would be far more concerned – rather than with personal suffering or economic problems – with how the bankruptcy of Air Malta would affect his ability to boast about how good his government has been for the economy. If Air Malta collapses before Muscat rushes to the polls, the empty boasts and lies about ‘Muscatonomics’ will collapse with it.
The way things are going now, even if Muscat wins this one, the likelihood that his government will make it through another five years is scant indeed. He and his crooked cronies are now under immense onslaught not only from the Maltese public, who are sick to the death of their corruption, but externally too, from the European press, European organisations, the European Parliament and, before long, from the European Commission. Muscat’s government is – brutally put – giving the European Union itself a bad reputation that it can ill afford in the present.
Basic common sense should tell us that if Muscat could not make it through his first five years even with a 36,000 majority and the Maltese public behind him and prepared to believe in him, there is no way on earth he can make it through a second attempt with a slim majority, a very bad reputation, huge public anger, suspicion among European institutions, and his crooked cronies still tacked to his trouser-hems. If he wins again, Malta is going to head into the same unthinkable disaster that it did in 1981, with a government that cannot govern trying to govern people who refuse to be governed by it, while the rule of law sinks further into frightening chaos.
“We want proof!” Muscat’s supporters have been told to shout all over the internet and in conversation. But proof is there to send people to jail, after investigation by the police and in a court of law. Proof is not even required for a prosecution, because if it were, we would have no need of due process and trials. Evidence, not proof, is what the police go on. Then it is up to the judge, the magistrate or the jury to decide whether the evidence constitutes proof.
But that is not the point, anyway, because the people who run our country, particularly when they are the Prime Minister and his closest aides, should like Caesar’s wife be above suspicion. They should not sit there, gripping the seat of power with bloodless knuckles, while scandals flame up about them, shouting “You have no proof” and hitting journalists with libel suits. The operating principle in these situations is that when one brings into disrepute the organisation one leads or heads, then one must go. Bringing it into disrepute is more than sufficient reason, and proof, innocence or guilt do not come into it as they do for junior employees.
Simply put, if Muscat were chairman of the board of a commercial corporation, and not head of government, he would have been forced out by his fellow board members, representing the shareholders, a long time ago. And in that situation, it would be uncountenanced that he should shout ‘Bring me proof!’ If the government were functioning as it should be in a normal democratic state, Muscat’s ‘board of directors’ – his fellow cabinet members – would have demanded his resignation or forced him out by now. By they think that their survival depends on having him stay. How wrong they are. Had they got rid of him, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Christian Cardona, Labour would have solved the root cause of its now massive problems, and survived with the battles of a scandal a day.