If there’s something which corrupt leaders never learn is that corruption tends to work only in the short term. Time always exposes the lies, the circus, the diversions, the freebies and the well-timed handouts for what they are. Even the pious categorical denials eventually fall apart. 

Look at how Joseph Muscat originally tried to smooth over the 2016 discovery of the Panama companies and everything that followed.  Slowly, and silently, his parliamentary group, like most of the country, formed clear suspicions and Muscat was forced to resign.

On a similar note, one cannot ignore the toxicity of Robert Abela’s 90-minute rant on May 6 where he sounded more like Muscat’s defence counsel than the prime minister of an EU country.

Abela had no trouble in publicly criticising the magistrate over the timing of the conclusions of the Vitals inquiry in an attempt to create a common enemy.

Up till now, the “traitors” were always “David Casa and the warmongering Roberta Metsola”. When that lost the little fake credibility it had, Abela unveiled a shadowy faceless organisation that wanted to destroy all the wonderful successes of the Labour Party since 2013.

What is it? Who are they? Abela explained to his listeners that it is a “power hungry” organisation, which controls elements within the Nationalist Party and, yes, has even infiltrated the country’s judiciary. 

Abela claims that this secret society wants to turn back time to another 25-year period of post-1987 austerity, hunger and poverty.

Abela is a confused orator with a poor judgement.

Why? He sheds a tear for Adrian Delia, claiming that it was the “establishment” that ousted him from the PN leadership. And, yet it was the same Delia that Abela worked against to block Delia from saving the country from paying more and more useless millions of euros under a fake deal which Abela himself was unable or unwilling to disown.

The real danger to Malta does not come from imaginary enemies. The real danger comes from leaders who create an ideology to justify an exalted position of impunity and who irresponsibly demonise journalists and other critics of the regime while not caring about the possible tragic and violent consequences of their acts.

October 16, 2017 is a clear example of this. Yet, it seems that our great leaders never seem to think too far ahead. 

Robert Abela is a confused orator with poor judgement- Eddie Aquilina

The secret of their short-term success is in currying favour by providing public goods efficiently and generously in the form of well-timed cheques and mass pardons for those who stole public monies using a six-million-euro fraudulent racket organised by persons of trust under the very nose of a minister who “categorically” denies ever smelling anything.

Did you see how Abela gave the go-ahead to his party’s political agents to bypass the electoral laws by means of fake residential data? He must look back in nostalgic awe at the 1981 – 1987 five golden years of a minority Labour government which was elected with less votes than its political rivals.

The weirdest aspect of his fake narrative is that it is Abela who is the prime epitome.

Born into a well to do legal professional home with a wide spectrum of political connections, his father contested the leadership of the Labour Party in 2008 and, soon after, became president of Malta using his close connections within the Nationalist Party.

Abela is married to another lawyer who was Labour’s executive secretary under the leadership of Muscat. Their law firm was awarded huge government retainers by both PN and PL administrations alike while it even squatted on public property for several years without paying rent.

Abela is a rich man and enjoys a rich lifestyle. He has experienced privilege and connections but never hardship. His berthing fees per year are more than a man’s basic salary.

The absolute joke of this story is that it was a disgraced Muscat establishment that crowned Abela as prime minister in the first place and which still has its hands around his throat. 

It is something that Abela has to live with, day and night, during every day of his doomed political career.