The last days

holder, were not aware of. I think that knowledge was that morality is unnecessary ballast that keeps the hot-air balloon from rising to reach the heights it’s meant to reach.

But now that the hot air has gone, something Alice-in-Wonderland-like has happened. Whereas in that children’s novel, the Cheshire cat disappears leaving the unnerving grin behind, in Malta, the unnerving grin has disappeared leaving an enervated Cheshirecat politico behind.

A statesman does not live politics as a get-rich-quick scheme (was the Bulgari watch just a tip... of a huge iceberg?). Muscat wanted to become a statesman; he became the central figure of a medieval tragedy instead.

Muscat’s birthday

On January 22, 2020, 10 days after his planned resignation, it will be the former Invictus‘ birthday, his 46th.

At forty-six years of age, he‘s at his peak, full of energy and vim, endowed with enough life experience to understand what he really wants and how to get it and to know the ways of the world and how to achieve his full potential. He has now reached the point when he’s too old to be young but too young to be old, when the investments he made in himself during the first half of his life can be brought to bear fruit. This is the time in the life of an alpha male when he can lead others not on the basis of institutional authority or a cornucopia of promises, but because the horizontal forehead lines, the faux-tame force of the voice, the dignified salt and pepper in the hair, and the wild violence he could potentially unleash but chooses not to, all conspire to make charismatic authority ooze naturally from every single pore in his body.

And yet, having reached this juncture, the former Invictus has castrated himself. His name has become worthless. Even on his Ph.D. rumours have been making the rounds for ages, which he never bothered to dispel because it would have looked petty and infra dig. So now with his top academic qualification sullied by doubts raised and never quelled; with the edifice of his political track record having been pulled down by the wrecking ball of his reckless blind faith in a man who has no scruples, no culture, no values, nothing but cynical materialist utilitarianism; with his reputation swept away by a destructive whirlwind that had started off as a breeze of chutzpah and self-confidence and then grew into full-blown arrogance and overconfidence as time went by... his downfall now is a tragedy. Not just for himself, but for the entire nation: his private failure is like an oil stain that spread all over the fabric of the nation’s reputation.

The “genius” – as that lady screeched at him after his Farewell Tour stop in Naxxar – turned out to be another benighted victim of the Dunningshould stop.

The chaos being created by this man in his last days should also stop or be stopped.

The doctor who in August 2012 said about Dom Mintoff’s 1998 actions: “I’m not saying his mind wasn’t there but this high fever could have affected him”, now can’t diagnose Muscat and save the nation further embarrassment and chaos?

The President of Malta

The last days of the former Invictus are marked by the signature disrespectful approach encapsulating his philosophy on public life and the nation’s institutions. That the President of Malta is drawn into this public display of disregard at the constitutional setup of the country, is also an ignominy.

It is not clear who is advising the President, but it seems to me that it’s unimaginative advice he’s receiving, that the constitutional setup is made up only of the constitutional document. This is wrong. There is the constitutional document but there‘s also constitutional morality. (As Dicey teaches.)

However, I am not surprised. I have it in writing from people very close to the President that His Excellency feels quite unsure about his knowledge of human rights (an integral part of our constitutional setup). It would therefore follow that he could also feel unsure about constitutional morality.

But His Excellency should follow his doctor instinct and transcend whatever legal advice he’s receiving. This country has had a political infarct and needs a device to arrest fibrillation of the ventricular muscles of the nation’s heart – a presidential defibrillator.

When a doctor is faced with an infarct situation, he does not consult a lawyer on the legal niceties. A doctor has to save the patient, without wasting precious time, acting quickly with vision, courage, and moral integrity.

These are the very qualities that Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and many Labourites had seen in George Vella in 1992, when Dr Vella was offered the leadership of the Labour Party. These are again the qualities that the Maltese nation now needs to see in Dr Vella. He has to act, and the constitutional setup affords him that.

On December 10, in a move that the editorial of this newspaper called “a double blow to democracy”, Parliament went into Christmas recess – three full weeks before Christmas – to reconvene three weeks into the new year. This decision was taken without consulting the Opposition. During this record-breaking seven-week recess, there is no way for a majority of MPs to express themselves in the only legally valid way possible, through the House itself. The President is claiming that he can remove the Prime Minister only if such a majority expresses itself yet he knows that they cannot do it because Parliament rose for