Monday marks the five-year anniversary since the day a 42-year-old Robert Abela climbed the steps of Castille as Prime Minister for the very first time.

The following were five years which would bring turmoil, from a global pandemic that brought the world crashing to a halt, to political scandal that saw his predecessor in the dock.

As Abela celebrates half a decade in the hot seat, Times of Malta looks back at the highs and lows of his tenure.

A baptism of fire, as COVID strikes

If Abela thought he could ease his way into the job, he had another thing coming.

Barely two months into his term, Malta was under lockdown, with Abela finding himself in the unprecedented situation of having to navigate a global pandemic as it wreaked havoc with the world’s healthcare systems and economies.

Few would dispute that Abela did an exemplary job.

Despite the occasional wobble – an ill-judged remark about “waves in the sea” here, a poorly-timed trip to Sicily there – Abela, together with then-Health Minister Chris Fearne, deftly steered Malta through the storm, with the island emerging from the pandemic relatively unscathed.

Fearne himself is quick to point out how decisive early action laid the foundations for Malta’s success.

“We managed to secure joint European procurement for vaccines, meaning that Malta’s vaccine rollout began on the same day as all of Europe’s major players. And we pioneered the system of vaccine passports, often in the face of resistance, which helped open our borders to tourism.”

What’s more, Fearne adds, the Abela team established transparent and clear communication with the public, with daily media briefings describing the latest developments in Malta’s battle against the pandemic.

By the time the pandemic faded into memory, Malta was garnering international praise for its COVID response, having suffered fewer than 1,000 COVID-related deaths and seeing its economy recover in record time.

No sign of economic slowdown

Abela may have inherited a country with a booming economy, but there’s no escaping the fact that it has proven remarkably resilient under his stewardship, even in the face of the recent global cost of living crisis.

Abela’s predecessor, Joseph Muscat, says he is “impressed” by the Abela government’s handling of the crisis, particularly through initiatives such as Stabbiltá, which sought to combat rising food inflation and subsidies to keep fuel prices low.

Just weeks into his premiership, the economy basically shut down as COVID-19 hit Malta. Yet, Abela’s decision to throw money at the problem paid off, with many sectors recovering in no time. Five years into Abela’s premiership, Malta’s economic boom shows little sign of abating.

The European Commission says Malta is likely to have the highest economic growth rates in Europe, while Malta’s Central Bank believes that the country’s economic prospects look rosy.

And while Malta’s economy has had its fair share of bumps over the year, from having its knuckles rapped over its excessive deficit and its reluctance to wind down energy subsidies to a short-lived stint on the FATF naughty step, Maltese households almost universally agree that their own financial situation is on the up.

A firm hand on rule of law… for a while

Abela entered office just as Malta was reeling from an unprecedented political crisis, with crowds taking to the streets regularly to protest failings in Malta’s rule of law.

Abela initially seemed hell-bent on taking things firmly into his hands and distancing himself from the outgoing Muscat administration.

When Abela announced his first Cabinet, several Muscat loyalists, not least the controversial Chris Cardona, found themselves left out in the cold.

Months later, he moved to expel Konrad Mizzi from the Labour parliamentary group, after links between offshore company 17 Black and a windfarm project in Montenegro were unveiled. 

And early summer brought about a long-awaited judicial reform, spurred by the Venice Commission’s recommendations to strengthen rule of law in Malta.

One-time Labour MEP Cyrus Engerer points to this reform as Abela’s greatest achievement.

“He tried to change what was wrong in terms of justice and rule of law upon entering office,” Engerer says.

“His very first steps were encouraging.”

As the months rolled into years, Abela’s credibility over the matter appears to have waned significantly.

An on-again-off-again approach to Rosianne Cutajar, first forcing her to resign from Labour’s parliamentary group in the wake of leaked chats between herself and Yorgen Fenech, only to bring her back to the fold months later, appears to have angered party faithful and floating voters alike.

More contentious still was opening the door to the potential return of Joseph Muscat in the run-up to last June’s MEP elections. Muscat’s return was eventually torpedoed by the bombshell news that the magisterial inquiry into the Vitals deal had concluded.

But more about that later.

A tale of two elections

Arriving just as Abela’s honeymoon period was drawing to a close, the 2022 general election marked Abela’s crowning moment.

Abela brushed off lingering doubts over his premiership, storming to the largest landslide victory in Malta’s electoral history.

The 39,500-vote margin, larger than any won even by Muscat in his heyday, granted Abela remarkable authority over both his party and his government.

But several political observers say this election marked a turning point, describing it as a “poisoned chalice” that drove Abela to govern with a spirit of omnipotence and arrogance in the following years.

The sense of invincibility was short-lived, with last June’s MEP elections cutting him down to size.

In a shock result, Abela saw his party’s seemingly unassailable lead slashed, with Labour winning the lowest share of the vote in almost 60 years.

Abela was left licking his wounds, fighting off internal disgruntlement and accusations of weak leadership from many quarters.

Environmental ruin, power cuts and creaking infrastructure

There’s little doubt that the flourishing economy of the Abela years has come at a social and environmental cost.

Many view the construction industry as the prime culprit, with even Malta’s top contractors pointing to the island’s uglification.

Environmental activists have frequently accused Abela of “being on the side of developers”, with his own occasional overtures towards the construction lobby doing little to ease their worries over the years. While Abela often warned about the need to take tough decisions, the rampant over-development has not waned in five years. The industry is also one of the drivers of the unprecedented influx of foreign workers to Malta’s shores throughout Abela’s tenure, many of them struggling to raise their head above the poverty line.

The contentious issue of foreign workers has proven a double-edged sword.

While, as Joseph Muscat argues, “these workers are not taking the place of Maltese ones, but actually saving their job by keeping businesses feasible”, Abela’s government has struggled to navigate its way through the rapid demographic changes it itself brought about, with the scapegoating of foreigners for all of society’s ills becoming a daily occurrence.

Meanwhile, Malta’s creaking infrastructure has also struggled to keep pace.

Malta’s long-standing sewage management problems came to a head in a recent European court judgment, while summers have been punctuated by a series of devastating power cuts caused by what many critics say is a chronic under-investment in Malta’s energy distribution system.

The inquiry that pushed Abela over the edge

Abela’s initial resolute approach towards corruption allegations and rule of law reforms gradually gave way to diatribes about members of the judiciary as the Vitals magisterial inquiry reached its climax.

Early last year, Abela launched a stern attack on the inquiry, questioning why it had taken over four years to be concluded and alleging that its conclusion was being delayed to coincide with the upcoming MEP elections.

The news that the inquiry had been concluded just as the parties were firing the starting gun in their electoral campaign, unsurprisingly also provoked Abela’s ire.

What followed was the unedifying sight of a prime minister railing against an unnamed “establishment”, suggesting that a “clique of people and their manoeuvres” had orchestrated the situation from behind the scenes.

The grim spectacle did little for Abela’s electoral success. A crushing disappointment at the polls would push Abela to gradually tone down his rhetoric over the inquiry in the following months.

Abela’s lowest ebb: the inquiry denied to Jean Paul Sofia’s grieving parents

Arguably the nadir of Abela’s administration, the mishandling of the Jean Paul Sofia public inquiry marks the point when many saw their trust in his premiership crumble.

Having spent months ignoring pleas for a public inquiry into Sofia’s death, Abela reluctantly reversed his decision at the eleventh hour, just as crowds were gathering in Valletta for a planned vigil.

Things had come to a head a week earlier, as government MPs voted down an opposition motion for a public inquiry.

The decision sparked anger, both within the parliament chamber, where Sofia’s distraught mother Isabelle Bonnici was seen shouting from the strangers’ gallery, and across Maltese social media.

Abela’s own MPs would later admit to feeling “ashamed” for having voted against the inquiry.

And the sight of Abela walking blankly past Sofia’s grieving parents outside parliament, on his way to being whisked away by his driver, will likely remain one of the defining images of his first half-decade in charge of government.

Controversial legislation

Abela was also forced to change his decisions on a law seen as introducing abortion through the back door. The draft presented by his government drew widespread protests, with then President George Vella warning he would not sign it unless it was changed.  Abela relented and revised the draft  to allow doctors to terminate a pregnancy when a woman’s life is at risk or her health is in “grave jeopardy which may lead to death.” The bill was then approved with parliamentary unanimity in July 2023. 

An earlier legislative highlight, and a controversial one at that, made Malta the first country in Europe to permit restricted use of cannabis for recreational use. Critics of the reform ranged from medical professionals to Church-run organisations, employers and the Nationalist Party. Former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi and former president Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca also made their concerns public.  The Bill became law in December 2021, the president having refused appeals not to sign it.