The land of no resignations

Resignations are just not part of our political culture.

In many other countries, the revelation that a minister and the prime minister’s chief of staff had opened secret offshore companies in Panama would have led to instant resignations. Not in Malta, though – no resignations were warranted in the land of surplus and low unemployment.

The lack of action in the wake of the Panama Papers fallout – one of the worst political scandals this country (and indeed, the world) has ever seen – set the stage for similar inaction in cases of political misdeeds that followed.

If no one resigned after Panama Papers, then surely no one would resign in the wake of, say, the visas scandal or the failure by the police to investigate the damning findings of several FIAU investigations.

No one resigned when an investigative journalist who routinely exposed government corruption was murdered outside her home in Bidnija. Not the prime minister, not the police minister, not even the politically appointed police chief.

In Slovakia, a country that some would consider less progressive than Malta, the prime minister resigned just two weeks after the murder of an investigative journalist. Robert Fico was not the killer, yet he assumed responsibility for something grave that happened under his

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watch and moved out of office.

We might be among the best in Europe at civil liberties and unemployment, but when it comes to shouldering political responsibility and humility there is so much we have to learn.

In many European countries, elections are held every few years, sometimes even months apart, because the governments there are formed by more than two parties and politicians are not as reluctant to call it a day when they mess up or the people under their responsibility mess up. General elections in many of these countries are, because of their common occurrence, a smooth process.

In Malta, however, we have the mentality that a government has to serve its full term and a prime minister has to lead the country for a number of consecutive terms. If this does not happen, it is deemed a failure and an early election is regarded as some big calamity. The lust for power and the reluctance to let go of it overrides everything else.

Last week, Sayed Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, the chairman of Pilatus Bank – which was at the centre of so many of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s investigations – was arrested in the US. This was no surprise really, because the FIAU, which investigated the bank in 2016, had noted that the chairman had been under criminal investigation in another jurisdiction.

Then it was revealed that the prime minister and his chief of staff Keith Schembri had attended the chairman’s Venice wedding in 2015. Of course, the Muscat and Schembri have not offered to resign, and the government and the Labour Party have shifted their propaganda machine into top gear to try and justify their attendance at the wedding.

This lack of culture of resignations is prevalent also in private companies, with directors and top officials many a time refusing to budge even when their conduct shows their own organisation in a bad light.

In another twist, a court yesterday annulled the infamous Gaffarena-government deal, in what many have described as justice prevailing. The scandal had seen the forced resignation of then-Lands Minister Michael Falzon, who, instead of accepting political responsibility, claimed to be the victim of some witch hunt. After the last election he was again promoted to cabinet, as the family minister.

Yesterday’s court decision proved, if proof was ever needed, that a right mess had been made under Falzon’s nose and that his resignation (or rather, sacking) was truly warranted.

Will he resign again after this court judgment? This is Malta, so it is safe to assume that he will not.