Cracks in the edifice
Clearly, it was not part of the roadmap. Last week’s events in court, starring Keith Schembri, have changed the plot for Joseph Muscat.
He was not prepared for the drama that unfolded, first in court and later in the media. He’s now struggling hard to mitigate the damage.
The backroom manoeuvres began before the day in court. Someone attempted to get the magistrate to recuse himself. It really would be interesting to know who had the interest to stop a magistrate from doing his job. I have a feeling that, sooner or later, we’ll find out.
But the magistrate was determined to do his job. Schembri’s legal team, quite an entourage, tried to find all the legal escape routes. All failed for one simple reason.
The magistrate was determined to do the right thing.
Telling the truth and lying both meant Schembri would end up behind bars. So, when all escape plans failed, there was only one single option left in hand. Schembri threw in the towel.
Of course, this implies that Simon Busuttil was right all along. If this had not been not the case, events would have been very different. Today the media would be in a frenzy discussing Busuttil’s weaknesses.
This is no ordinary case. The protagonists are high-profile persons in our country. The case is intrinsically linked to details revealed by the brutally assassinated journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia who, let us remember, was actually murdered a few hours after Schembri testified in court (the only time he did so) in this same case.
I sat in parliament listening to Simon Busuttil give a detailed rendition of the extraordinary events which took place in court. This event was a significant personal victory for him, who had had his credibility mocked by the Labour spin machine.
But it’s obviously also going to have an impact on the two major political parties.
Let’s begin with the PN, my party. Our parliamentary group is a very colourful one. Our diversity and readiness to debate means we can be argumentative. Labour, which tolerates far less diversity of opinion, tries to spin the PN as split into two factions. Actually, it is not like that.
Our reality is more of a mosaic: diverse components that, put together, form a single picture. It has been this way for a several decades, but our predecessors managed the public image better.
Today the group gels together strongly on issues like good governance and the fight against corruption. With obvious corruption in the headlines, Muscat is reacting by getting the Labour media, over the past few days, to constantly publish stories on the ‘‘divide’’ in the PN group. Muscat knows that Schembri’s outcome in court strengthened the forces which oppose him.
The case has also brought out the cracks in Labour itself.
Cracks in Labour, you say? Could dear old Invictus possibly let his group fall apart? Yes, the signs are clearly there. For us in a position to observe from up close, the cracks open wider when Muscat is overseas, even if it is for a few days in Brussels. His group stops pretending to be in harmony.
Some months ago, a Labour MP told me how they observe us PN MPs, especially what our body language says about our cohesion as a group. Today, I can comfortably say that, over the past weeks, but particularly since the courtroom drama last week, Labour’s body language in Parliament spoke volumes about growing tensions.
There has been a marked increase in Labour MPs doing a “drive-through”. They walk in from one door of the main chamber, signal to the parliamentary staff to be marked as present, and proceed to walk out of another door within seconds.
Take the debate on the Equality bills which took place in Parliament in the first two weeks of November. Attendance on the Government side was not as strong as one would expect for a set of laws which has been thrown into the arena as bait for the Opposition.
In the days following Schembri’s stint in court, the weak presence of Government gladiators during Parliamentary Question time was also evident. On one particular occasion, there were only four Labour MPs present: two ministers to answer the questions, the Whip (whose main role during PQ time is to ask the right questions to his ministers) and just a single backbencher.
When I read the story about the alleged fallout between
Chris Fearne and Chris Cardona, I was not surprised. I had actually heard the noise myself when it happened, but had not found out what it was until I read about the incident in the media.
For so long, Muscat has behaved as though Labour is as solid as a rock. The cracks that are showing, however, suggest that, like Muscat’s promises, the unity is hollow.