Fake serenity, in your face

When last February a video surfaced showing a rather disheveled Michelle Muscat prancing about with a champagne bottle in her hand while her husband jumped around like a reveler in a ‘ marċ ta’ filgħodu’ in one of our village feasts, something bad happene

The video tore asunder the Muscat family’s carefully nurtured persona – he with his suits, with cuff-links very visible, she with her designer dresses and carefully set hair.

With what we now know in our limited knowledge, most of us merely saw the whole scene as boorish in the extreme; an episode of bad taste, revealing perhaps that Labour hadn’t changed and that the old party songs, the old emblem with the torch, had not really been consigned to history, but merely and temporarily kept out of sight.

But that was before we came to know what we now know: that on that occasion or thereabouts, Yorgen Fenech, now accused of masterminding Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, gifted Muscat not one, but two luxury watches, one of which was a €20,000 Bulgari timepiece, in addition to three exclusive bottles of wine worth €5,800.

Obviously, we do not know so far of other gifts from other habitués of the fourth floor at the Ċentru Nazzjonali

Laburista before the election.

These gifts were not registered by Dr Muscat in the appropriate parliamentary register, and that is already a criminal offence. On the contrary, he flaunted them.

His mask has now slipped and he acts as if he does not give a damn. Cool as anything, on Friday he boarded first-class on an Emirates flight together with all his family on a trip to Dubai. The place is known for its splendid resorts and shopping malls. It is also a place for banking operations and, in fact, some of the accounts mentioned in connection with corruption in Malta have Dubai connections.

Rumour in Malta has gone into overdrive – someone dragged up an Emirates flight from Bologna to Dubai landing at around the same time as Muscat’s flight. Others came up with an alleged notice to Egrant shareholders of an extraordinary general meeting to be held in Dubai on these particular days. The OPM merely said Muscat will not be meeting Keith Schembri.

Mr Schembri and his family left on a low-cost flight to Bologna a day before Muscat after his lawyers had come to an agreement with the prosecution allowing him to leave Malta. This news, before we came to know of Muscat’s Christmas tour, came as a shock to the country because it is not normal for a person on police bail to be allowed to leave the country.

And then came the news that Muscat, whose ambitions in previous months had included a top post in the EU, had been named as ‘2019 Man of the Year in Organised Crime and Corruption’ by the Organised Crime & Corruption Reporting Project.

What we are going through is unbelievable. We have a disgraced prime minister who insists on remaining there and going through the motions as head of government, jetting to meet the Pope, going to Bethlehem for Christmas Mass and now sticking two fingers at the people on the breadline or on the minimum wage and flying to the haunt of millionaires with his entire family as if he has not a care at all.

He is a politician on his way out but, meanwhile, his influence can still be felt in the protection of so many partners of crime who all seem to have a link to Castille and who still act as if it’s business as usual.

The person who will win the Labour race on 12 January should know that the country expects him to sever all links with Muscat and his power circle. Nothing less.

What we will most probably get is for Muscat to act as

Dom Mintoff acted when he had enough and left the government in the hands of weak KMB, interfering all the time and breathing down his neck.

If this is being unfair with the two candidates, let them each declare how they will act with regard to Muscat, whether they will retain his ministers and key advisors and whether they will allow the investigative forces do their job with the minimum of supervision. We want clear commitments.

It is in the Labour Party’s own interest to cut off all links with Muscat. If this is not absolute, then Labour has a problem: Muscat will remain an albatross round its neck.