A short-lived empire: the fall of a false messiah

Joseph Muscat may have won by a landslide in 2013 and, again, in 2017 but, in historical terms, his political reign was remarkably short-lived. For all the talk of dominance and popularity, his time in office lasted less than seven years, a fleeting moment in Maltese political history, especially when compared to the longevity of leaders like Dom Mintoff, George Borg Olivier, Eddie Fenech Adami and even Alfred Sant. Muscat’s empire crumbled not because of electoral defeat but because of scandal, shame and the sheer weight of corruption.

The cracks began to appear almost immediately. As already mentioned in the previous part of this series, the early years of his government were marked by a string of shady deals and financial sleaze: the Café Premier bailout and the Gaffarena property scandal. These were not peripheral missteps. They were central to how Muscat’s administration operated. For them, as guided by him, the rules didn’t apply and accountability was an outdated concept.

The Panama Papers in 2016 were the tipping point. The exposure of secret offshore companies linked to Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, two of Muscat’s most trusted lieutenants who have now been relegated to has-beens, were it not for their regular court appearances answering to various criminal charges, shattered the illusion of integrity.

Mizzi, once hailed as a rising star, had been caught funnelling assets through a Panama company mere days after taking office. Schembri, Muscat’s chief of staff, was found to be doing the same. And, then, there was a third mysterious company, EGRANT, set up concurrently by the same broker. Its real owner was never identified, sparking years of speculation and investigations; in newspeak mode, Muscat’s machine twisted ‘no evidence for link’ to mean ‘evidence of no link’. It remains a mystery that has fuelled years of suspicion.

Despite public outrage, Muscat refused to act. Mizzi stayed in the cabinet. Schembri continued to dominate Castille. The message was clear: loyalty trumped ethics. The prime minister, who had claimed he would lead by example, now shielded the very people implicated in the worst political scandal in Malta’s modern history. The veneer began to peel away. Confidence in institutions declined. Investigative journalists, most notably the late Daphne Caruana Galizia, ramped up their reporting. And Muscat, once the golden boy of reform, now looked increasingly isolated and embattled.

Then came the assassination that would define Muscat’s legacy, something that no amount of twisting and wriggling would ever erase from his watch.

On October 16, 2017, Caruana Galizia was assassinated outside her home in Bidnija, killed by a car bomb in a mafia-style execution. She had been investigating corruption at the highest levels of government, including the dealings of Muscat’s inner circle.

Joseph Muscat was ultimately destroyed by his own arrogance- Eddie Aquilina

Her murder sent shockwaves through Malta and the international community. The rules of the game had been stretched far beyond the name-calling and the classic parry and thrust that is the heart and soul of political discourse.  It was a chilling confirmation of what many had feared: the rot at the heart of the Maltese politics established by Muscat was not just toxic. It was deadly, literally.

As pressure mounted, Muscat’s position became untenable. Public protests erupted. Civil society mobilised. International media scrutiny intensified. It was no longer just about corruption, however widespread it had become. It was about a government enabling, covering for and, possibly, being complicit in, criminality.

On December 1, 2019, Muscat finally announced his intention to resign. But even in this, he clung to power for weeks, overseeing a transition on his own terms. It was a graceless exit for a man once hailed as Malta’s saviour. By October 2020, Muscat was gone from parliament entirely, his political career reduced to ashes. His grand project, the transformation of Labour into a winning machine, had ended in personal disgrace. He became the first prime minister in Maltese history to resign under the cloud of a murder investigation implicating members of his own inner circle.

The myth of Muscat as a visionary, as Malta’s invincible leader, collapsed. He hadn’t fallen to an electoral wave or political coup. He fell because his system, the system of his own ideation and creation, had imploded. The very tactics he had used to seize and retain power – secrecy, patronage and impunity – ended up being the reasons for his downfall. What remained was not the legacy of a leader but the wreckage of a regime.

Far from a political colossus, Muscat was revealed to be a false messiah, propped up by propaganda, carried by circumstance and, ultimately, destroyed by his own arrogance. He had seduced a nation with promises of unity and prosperity, only to leave it divided, tainted and struggling to rebuild trust in its institutions.

His fall should be a warning, not just a closing chapter. Because what Muscat represented wasn’t just a man, albeit a hollow one of which there are many clones and copycats; it was a system and the creation of an environment that supported all levels of crime, including murder. And that system, though he is gone, continues to cast a long shadow over Malta.

(This is the third of a four-part series on Joseph Muscat’s politics and legacy.)

Eddie Aquilina