The elusive norms of democratic government

The recent four-year extension of Angelo Gafà as police commissioner is nothing short of another cynical display of this government’s total repudiation of the accepted norms of democratic government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there is no better example of that in the entire European Union than Malta.

The sacrosanct principles of separation of powers is just a nonexistent inconvenience under this government. Ministerial accountability is the butt of jokes among Labour ministers. The main pillars of democratic government simply do not exist under this administration.

St Luke’s Hospital, one of three hospitals, sold to Steward.

By definition, Labour should normally be regarded as the workers’ party, the standard bearer of the working class, the champion of rights for those who are financially disadvantaged, those who need healthcare and other social services.

Unbelievably, Labour actually sold the entire public health infrastructure to ravenous dodgy operators under a deal declared null and void by the court. The cost to this country is in the tens if not hundreds of millions of euros.

This, under the noses of the current public prosecutor and police commissioner who uses every nebulous excuse to delay or avoid serious investigations of most matters involving current ministers and a judicial system heavily contaminated by nepotism, self-interest, and chicanery.

That, under the Labour Party, is Malta’s interpretation of democratic government.

What we have in Malta is an oligarchy, a government by the few for the benefit of the few, supported by a growing class of a wealth-obsessed timocracy ready to sacrifice everything and anything in pursuit of unlimited economic growth.

Admittedly, the economy is booming and has been for several years. It’s likely to continue booming in the face of other tourist-based EU economies seeing the light and strongly pushing back against mindless, uncontrolled, cheap tourism and numbing overdevelopment.

This already massively overcrowded island now produces one of the most polluted air environments in the EU. That is the price we pay for economic growth at any cost.

What is commonly referred to as the Vitals hospitals deal was nothing short of an outrageously contrived robbery of public assets to benefit the financial interests of those puppeteers pulling the levers of powers granted to them by a misled electorate.

TONY TREVISAN – Perth, West Australia