To paraphrase Enoch Powell “All political careers end in failure” but some political careers end in disaster so great that it measures on the Richter scale. Take the career of one Joseph Muscat. He did promise us an earthquake after all.

Who can forget his election as leader of the Malta Labour Party in 2008 when he was voted in on the promise to do politics differently because he was “fed up with the usual status-quo politics”?

At 34, Muscat became the youngest leader of the party and at the first rally for his supporters he had declared two things: firstly, that he will be “honest with the Maltese people and secondly that “We are back in business big time”.

Spot the lie.

How quickly he forgot what he himself had said a mere three days earlier that he is “fed up with politicians who say something but do something else”.

His career is replete with doublespeak, and I dare say, outright lies. No one can accuse him of not starting as he meant to go on.

I remember reading the glowing reports on the “meteoric rise” of this poster boy of Maltese socialism but even then, even before he was elected leader of the Labour party, one Daphne Caruana Galizia cut through his spin like a hot knife through butter. Indeed, three months before he was elected Labour leader, she had written in reply to a comment under one of her blog posts dated March 27, 2008: “We don’t care what sort of Labour leader he makes. We care what sort of prime minister he makes.”

And we all know how that turned out. How right she was about Muscat.

And because Caruana Galizia was right about him before and during his two stints as prime minister, Muscat did not last two whole terms in spite of the two resounding wins at the polls; because Daphne was right about him, Muscat resigned in disgrace from the premiership at the beginning of this year; because she was right about him, last week we witnessed the ignominious exit of the self-proclaimed ‘Invictus’ from politics with a 90 second hurried speech in parliament and then scurried off like a fugitive.

Not this time, the choreographed triumphalism of a cut price Caesar back from battle, not this time the Farewell Tour of the Fab Four complete with hysteria and bosoms emblazoned with ‘Joseph il-King’.

Instead we got a speech, if it may be called such, more appropriate for someone resigning in disgrace from a Boċċi Club committee than from the highest institution in the land.

Muscat should have left parliament altogether in January but being ever so thrifty with his money ­– after all his bank account has been stuck at the magical 75k euro for years in spite of the jet set life style of a nouveau riche arriviste – Muscat chose to squat in parliament throughout the summer recess because, you know, those assets don’t populate themselves.

Joseph Muscat plotted the perfect road map of pillage and impunity- Alessandra Dee Crespo

Much has been written already about Muscat’s poisoned legacy, how he soiled the premiership, our parliament, every institution in the land, our collective conscience. Reams have been written on how he might or might not be implicated in the state-sponsored assassination of his arch nemesis and most vociferous critic on his watch, so I will not repeat it.

But Muscat is a cautionary tale in politics and beyond. At 39 he became Malta’s youngest prime minister post-independence with a strong mandate to govern and be a force for good.

He could have been a contender, though Caruana Galizia did write witheringly that “if you couldn’t assess Muscat and his party for what they were, before 2013, you’re not up to much”.

Right again.

Nevertheless, Muscat had a chance to prove his critics wrong, but instead he chose to squander it all in the pursuit of self-interest and that of his closest associates.

Instead of making Malta “the best in Europe” as he had lied, sorry, pledged, he has dragged Malta’s reputation through dirt.

The lasting image of Muscat will not be of his massive mass meetings but rather the few hundreds who chased him out of office with brooms, whistles and pots and pans.

In his head Muscat plotted the perfect road map of pillage and impunity but he arrogantly forgot to factor in Caruana Galizia and her nose for a story.

So it was poetic justice to note that Muscat resigned from the Maltese parliament on the very day when the European Parliament announced an annual prize for investigative journalists named after Daphne, another international accolade in a list that takes longer to read than his miserable 90 second speech.

What does Muscat have to show for his premiership? One assassinated journalist, a ‘best friend’ in jail, another best friend and his former chief of staff on police bail, his former star minister ousted from the party, his favourite attorney general and police commissioner out of office, his former cabinet members hauled in front of the public inquiry either suffering from amnesia or spilling the beans on his tyrannical leadership style and oh, one international prize: the 2019 OCCRP Person of the Year for Corruption and Organised Crime.

John Sweeney dubbed Muscat the “Artful Dodger of Europe” once. That crown seems to be slipping too.

Caruana Galizia may be gone, but it is Muscat who is dead in the water.

Alessandra Dee Crespo is president-elect of Repubblika.