That Was The Week That Was (*)

When we will look back on the Christmas of 2019 we will remember not just the festive season that was ruined for all but mainly the crumbling of the Joseph Muscat regime.

The week that ended yesterday was a series of dramatic events coming mostly unexpected that shook the country to the core. Beginning on Tuesday,

Adrian Delia published the long-awaited Egrant report, all 1,500 pages of it. (We admire here the progress of technology. In other times such a huge volume would have had to be made into a book, proofs corrected together with a huge expenditure of paper. Instead, it was a PDF file which was immediately shared by thousands).

Like many others, my fingers grew numb with scrolling page after page. Those who later relied on snippets and excerpts simply have no idea of the wealth of detail and thoroughness the author devoted to it.

By the next day hundreds of excerpts were posted and what the government may have sought to cover by refusing to publish all became public.

It is true that the main issue, whether Egrant belongs to the Muscat family remains unproved, (although even here there are gaps in the email thread) but so many secondary stories surfaced, mostly putting the government in a bad light that the whole country was up in arms. Indications on those who must be further investigated remained unexplored.

This time the outrage did not spill over to protests on the streets, proving my contention that it was not the protests that unseated Joseph Muscat, but it was Muscat’s edifice that crumbled down. The protests on the streets were a contributory factor.

Then came the Keith factor. First he missed court, and when tracked down said he had no idea of the court sitting. Then after being made to travel to Valletta from Mellieha, the court adjourned after just five minutes. Maybe the judge wanted to make sure he was in Malta.

Keith had his day in court on the next day in a session that lasted from 10am almost to 3pm. Our valorous person in court strung together some 6,000 words covering the whole sitting. For most people the most memorable sound-bite was when Mr Schembri said he mislaid his mobile phone, to guffaws of disbelief from the whole country.

At the same time, for this thing has multiple loci, the European Parliament was debating a resolution on Malta, resigned from the party.

Thus ended the week (unless something happens between writing this and its appearance on the news stands). Joseph Muscat is still prime minister with the Maltese flag fluttering on his car’s bonnet. He went to the European Council as head of government. Presumably he still goes to his office at the Auberge de Castille.

He is unshakeable in his position. Not even the President can move him (although whether the President would want to do this to the person who plucked him out of the ranks of pensioners to become Head of State, is a moot point).

Parliament is not meeting, so a Vote of No Confidence is out of the question. And as far as we know there has not been another Cabinet meeting after the seven hour one at night some days ago.

Usually, in these days, there would be an interminable round of visits involving the President, the Cabinet, the Parliament, the bishops, the Judiciary, and the general public. So far, we have heard nothing of the sort except two visits to the President by two sets of MPs.

There remains L-Istrina. Will Joseph Muscat make an appearance there?