Robert Abela must step up and show leadership or risk having his position as Labour leader come under fire, party insiders believe.

While some insiders speak of a prime minister painting himself into a corner, others say he is the victim of impossible circumstances beyond his control. 

They say Abela’s position has been weakened by the haemorrhage of Labour votes over the past week, most notably in the MEP elections. But many say he was dealt a tough hand and were also critical of his “selfish” predecessor, Joseph Muscat. 

Times of Malta spoke to more than 10 ministers, MPs, campaigners and administrators within Labour, a party which finds itself forced to do some soul-searching despite having won both the MEP and local council elections. 

While the council election outcome gave the party some breathing room, it is clear that Abela will be under significant scrutiny in the coming months. 

“Now the onus is on Robert to show leadership. Questions will inevitably start being asked. He has no clear challenger, but others are waiting in the wings to see how he reacts,” a Labour figure said. 

The knives are already being sharpened within Labour’s parliamentary group, three separate sources said. 

One Labour MP decried Abela’s “lack of vision and human relations”, saying the prime minister was becoming increasingly isolated.

“He has no moral authority in the party – people are not even falling in line behind certain instructions he’s giving.”

Asked if the internal disgruntlement could morph into a potential coup, the MP said it is clear that everybody is biding his time.

“Whoever’s intelligent enough will hope for a wider outcry before acting. But quite a few people are making their own calculations. Robert is coming across as unpredictable, and he is hardly trusting anyone in his team. A leader cannot operate that way.”

“We focused too strongly on our hardcore, and that dissuaded moderate voters who previously gave us their vote. Hindsight is 20/20 but the writing was on the wall,” a backbencher said.  

Another PL MP was even more damning in his analysis: “He [Abela] is getting paranoid, with his back against the wall. At this rate, he will collapse under his own weight.”

The MP said it was shameful that the party has not bothered to start analysing the drastic reduction of votes in the EP and local elections. 

“This should not be business as usual. We cannot have an administration going AWOL. Many are turning against the prime minister internally, and an army of voters, especially the moderates, are starting to abandon Labour.” 

Another Labour insider said that until the party acknowledges it has a problem it is going to have difficulty moving on. 

“We need to sit down and have a proper discussion as to why we lost massive support. From where I’m sitting, the writing’s on the wall. We will probably scrape through a close victory in the next general election, and that is only because Joseph Muscat left such a strong legacy of support. And then we will spectacularly implode, the same way the PN did between 2008 and 2013.”

The Vitals effect

But many MPs and party insiders remain sympathetic to Abela and the position he found himself in during the campaign. 

All said that the Vitals scandal had significantly damaged the party, and many insisted the timing of the inquiry being concluded was disastrous. 

“Even if the magistrate was being scrupulously apolitical, the timing of the inquiry conclusion sent out a very strong political message,” said one minister who has avoided commenting publicly about the issue.  

While many privately acknowledge that Abela’s repeated criticism of Magistrate Gabriella Vella turned off middle-of-the-road voters, they think he could hardly have done otherwise.

“We had a big issue that needed to be addressed, and we had to ensure we brought out the vote. And that brought inevitable consequences,” said one minister. 

“Robert was overtaken by events, he didn’t have many options,” another argued. “He risked a major split within the party if he said nothing.”

Another minister spoke bluntly. “This was no ordinary campaign. In most countries, a political party would collapse if its former leader and deputy leader ended up facing criminal charges. Despite that, we won two separate elections.” 

“We were caught between a rock and hard place,” a campaign organiser said. “However we reacted, we would have been punished by a section of the electorate.” 

Joseph Muscat to blame

While Labour MPs do not all agree on Abela’s response to the Vitals scandal, they all spoke in similar terms about Abela’s predecessor, Joseph Muscat. 

Of the roughly 10 insiders who Times of Malta spoke to, nine specifically singled Muscat out for blame. 

“We owe Joseph a lot, but he was very selfish this time round. He used to say that nobody was bigger than the party. Remember how he ditched Anġlu Farrugia? And now that he’s in the firing line, he dragged us all into it,” one long-standing minister said. 

Many said they winced when they saw the masses of people gathered outside court during Muscat’s arraignment last month. 

“It’s precisely the sort of image that Muscat worked so hard to shed Labour of when he became party leader in 2008,” an insider said. “And the irony is that the show of force was organised by people who he had quietly relegated from the party – people like Manuel Cuschieri and Jason Micallef.” 

A campaigner said: “If I wasn’t part of the Labour Party I would have ruled out voting for the party the moment I saw those scenes outside court. It was embarrassing.”

“That spectacle outside court turned people off,” one minister concurred. “And seeing our MEP candidates line up for Muscat’s endorsement was just ugly. They should have a backbone. Thomas Bajada [who was not endorsed by Muscat] showed it wasn’t needed.” 

While many expressed concern about the party’s loss of votes in the two elections – around 31,000 in the EP elections and 27,000 in the councils – they emphasised that the campaign, which was dominated by the Vitals scandal that saw Muscat charged with corruption, was an anomalous one.

“It’s a bloody nose,” a person involved in Labour’s campaign said of the two electoral results. “But it’s just that. It can be contained.” 

They continued: “There is no reason to go into panic mode, but it is clear we need to sit down and think.” 

Still, the outcome of local council elections has given many Labour insiders a more optimistic outlook.

“We were braced for the worst,” one minister confirmed. “But a 20,000-vote margin is an excellent result, all things considered.”

A party insider said he was more confident of the future now than a week ago. 

“There’s work to do, but it’s a very good starting point. The PN didn’t make the gains it’s acting like it did.” 

There is widespread acknowledgement among Labour’s parliamentary group that it would have been impossible to repeat its 2019 showing.

“I think the PN tried to sabotage itself in 2019, when it was in the middle of a crisis. And this time round we had the Vitals crisis to contend with,” one minister said. 

“We had made 40,000-vote margins something normal, when they are patently not,” said someone closely involved in Labour’s campaign. 

They downplayed the significance of Labour losing control of some councils. 

“Councils like Mosta, Siġġiewi and San Ġwann have always been PN-leaning, and only swung our way when the PN was in deep crisis,” the insider said. 

One cabinet member confided that a part of them was relieved to see the parties edge closer to each other.

“It’s not healthy to have a country that is dominated by a single party – even if that party happens to be mine,” the minister said.  

The PN’s performance

While there is some concern about the party’s general direction and its ability to recapture the attention of moderate voters, Labour insiders were less preoccupied with the PN. 

“The PN did not do as brilliantly as it is trying to make out,” a cabinet member said. “And while Roberta Metsola broke records, she did not really draw new voters to the PN.” 

With over 87,000 first-count votes, Metsola was the most popular MEP candidate in local electoral history. But Labour analysts note that the PN and Labour both got more votes in the local council elections than the MEP one. 

“They talk about the Metsola effect, but I think it was the Cassola effect,” a Labour insider said. “I think there was a big protest vote element at play.”  

A weak MEP line-up

There is widespread acknowledgement that the party’s MEP prospects were damaged by a line-up of relatively inexperienced candidates with little name recognition among the public.

“Some people in our own party didn’t know who Thomas Bajada was,” one minister said, referring to the party’s third elected MEP. “He came from nowhere. But our own people didn’t even know him!” 

Abela tried to get a heavy hitter to run on the Labour ticket but was unable to do so, multiple sources confirmed. One MP said that [former European commissioner] Karmenu Vella was an idea at one stage. 

Another said Abela considered plucking one of his ministers and getting them to run.

Rumours that Muscat was considering an MEP bid did not help, a campaign insider said. 

“Some of the people we approached were concerned about where a Muscat candidacy would leave them. And by the time he ruled it out, it was too late,” they recalled. 

“Perhaps we should have emulated [Italian Prime Minister Giorgia] Meloni,” one minister mused. Meloni put herself on the ballot as an MEP candidate for her party, though she has no intention of taking up a seat in Strasbourg. 

For one party insider, the bigger margin between parties in the local council elections was a sign that strong candidates can make all the difference.

“In local council elections, an individual can trump a party. Look at Attard, where Stefan Cordina was re-elected mayor. He’s a PN candidate, but even Labour voters picked him, because they trust him,” he said.