The events that are unfolding every 15 minutes as I write this article are the culmination of years of twists and turns of political drama. The revelations of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s blog on corruption, to the resignation of Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi have confirmed our worst fears: politics, big business and the underworld are mashed all together into one.

Clientelism is the cornerstone of our political system; however, this scandal has crossed so many lines. If it were not for a few occurrences, this scandal would have gone unnoticed and the culprits would have got away with it. If it were not for a leak in a law firm in faraway Panama and a single journalist in Malta to blog about it and continue to investigate, today we would be none the wiser.

Whatever political creed we derive from, we should be disappointed with those we elected. The scandal has shown how fragile our political system is and how vulnerable.

Our system is based on back scratching. Political parties need money, big businesses need permits... an ideal marriage of convenience. State financing of political parties will remove the need for political parties to depend on hand outs.

However, more radical change is needed. In our political system, it is very easy for a crook to say the right things at election time and find him/herself in office.

I believe it is time that the Electoral Commission be given the power to carry out in depth due diligence of candidates contesting the general elections.

Their findings should be made public, with the added power of barring people from contesting if something untoward is discovered. Obviously, surprise and snap elections would have to be given advance notice.

The political parties have to carry out their moral due diligence and have a duty to vet candidates properly and make sure that the candidates are there to serve the country and its people and not the other way round.

Political parties should not continue to be masters of spin, but the masters of proposals and concrete politics

The political system needs a clean-up. There is no fool-proof system. However, it should make it difficult for anyone with bad intentions to manage to pass the test. If one wants to be a politically exposed person, then before facing the people’s vote, he/she must show that they are fit to stand for election.

When in power make consultancy a scarce need. With today’s government workforce, the need for these handsomely paid consultants should be reduced.

In actual fact, chairmanships, directorships and consultancies are nothing but the equivalent to the peerage scandal in the United Kingdom.

The system is rotten to the core and is there merely to reward those who lent a helping hand to the minister who appointed them or the party in government.

Make the civil service independent, with the clear task of implementing government policy, in a just manner. Again allow civil servants to stand their ground and direct the proper way how things should be done.

Let the members of the judiciary be chosen for their knowledge of the law and not for their past political allegiances. Past and present governments have used and abused the current system. It is now time for the independent institutions to take this delicate task in hand.

Why not do away with political party television and radio stations? Political parties should not continue to be masters of spin, but the masters of proposals and concrete politics. Let politicians face the hard questions from the media and let the media do away with reports and have real hardcore journalists, who dig deep to find the truth.

Then the most important is us, the voters. I have the fortune of having been on both sides of the coin. I have fought elections, some successfully, some less.

Today I am just a voter. We the people need to put our guard up and be less prone to falling into the electoral trap of promises that tend to blind us. We should be more analytical of the political parties and less gullible.

To be frank – with all we are witnessing today – the writing was on the wall. I admit I lean towards one political party and am not totally independent, but the signs were there for all to see, at least in the 2017 elections.

Therefore, there is an element of mea culpa. The people had a right to vote the government back in, but in that election, there was no message of warning. I feel the message was to do it again.

In this political crisis, we have a major role to play and an opportunity to shake up this pitiful system.

My sentiment with what is happening around me is that enough is enough.

Malcolm Mifsud is a voter.