And proud of it

Auberge de Castille his supporters considered him il-kink (the king). Muscat was the true embodiment of all things every red-blooded laburist dreams about, the Invictus beyond all dreams.

Whether Robert Abela is now seen as kingly, or still a prince in nappies who will never really lord it over his supporters, I have no idea.

The tragedy of this country is that Labour party leaders have been more in sync with henchmen than democracy. As a nation, we are more inclined to follow the diktats of the strong man, or maybe by some stretching of our deeply set misogyny, woman.

Thanks to this weird DNA, Malta is consistently more perversely Labour-leaning. And the more the Labour leaders use force, coercion, corruption, stretching of justice, and environmental degradation, the more people from all folds seem to follow and applaud them.

The PN was victorious in the 1960s thanks to the strange, antidemocratic assistance of the Catholic Church. Back then the ever-forgiving church had declared that anybody voting for the Labour Party would be committing a mortal sin.

Labourites say they are proLabour till death but, given a choice between heaven and hell, they seem to choose heaven. After all, mortal sins, in Catholic fundamentalism, spell eternal damnation.

Practically all through the 1990s, up to 2008, the PN triumphed. Which seems to totally disprove my theory that Labour is a better breeding place for voters.

What happened then, I imagine, is that the promise of joining the EU, thus obtaining loads of cash and free stuff, kept Labour, which was totally against the EU, unelectable. A certain man by the name of Alfred Sant also played his part.

Ironically, probably because Sant was slightly less autocratic, wanted a non-violent, non-corrupt party, he lost the numbers game and kept Labour in the political wilderness.

Then Labour under

Joseph

Muscat bounced back, having realised the potential of tapping the EU for cash by selling Maltese passports and sundry other devious, corrupt and even murderous schemes. And Malta’s men and women flocked to them, ditching the PN.

They say democracy needs an opposition. But the PN is in no fit state to oppose anything. With a leader who is even more clueless than Robert Abela, with the ratings soon dropping below 20%, the once proud PN is on the brink of extinction.

It is also bankrupt, of values, of the moral high ground, of money and of people. 20% in a two-party system is like sending the Bubaqra Oratory Boys to play a football match against Barcelona or Real Madrid.

The Labour Party has lately managed to become not just the party in power but the party that attracts everyone to join. Or if not join, to abandon the fight against Labour.

Whatever lies in store, whatever Covid-19 manages to wreck, what is certain is that, whether we like it or not, we are going to have a Labour Party leader in power till most of us die a natural death in the next few decades.

The slogan Laburist sal-mewt was never as aptly coined as now.

Whether Robert Abela is now seen as kingly, or still a prince in nappies who will never really lord it over his supporters, I have no idea.