The gap between politics and ethics, politics and truth, politics and accountability gets ever wider.  Many politicians have become utterly impervious to accountability, transparency or integrity.  The same can be said for such politicians taking responsibility.  Sadly, we live in a Malta where that ‘taking of responsibility’ so often means precisely the opposite.

Death after death, crime after crime, failure after failure, court case after court case, the mantra continues – ‘they did it too’, ‘not me, someone else’s fault’, ‘blame traitors or migrants’, ‘underlying conditions’ etc.  It was happening all around us but we saw, heard or said nothing.

Public political life in Malta has become so utterly distanced from appropriate responsibility, morality, ethics and, dare I say it, old-fashioned honesty.  I was raised in a community that expected the majority of politicians to serve the people, not themselves.

Another such old-fashioned value – shame – is not a concern for our politicians; shame is reserved for others, for little people.  As an outsider, I am constantly shocked by the lack of even the most basic respect for citizens, the law or common decency.  The outright flouting of the law and of the normal rules of political and administrative behaviour beggars belief, especially for someone not reared in Malta’s particular brand of politics.

Even embarrassment seems to be beyond them. This reality is openly visible at the very highest levels of Maltese politics every day. 

It is deeply dispiriting to witness because intuitively and viscerally, the Malta and the Maltese I know want better than this, especially for their families.    

Ministers operate across the land with no apparent concern or fear of consequences before the law or before the people they are elected to serve.  Greed, graft and even open criminality are dominant hallmarks for so many of our ‘role model’ politicians. 

Yet their public utterances proclaim, ‘all is well’, ‘never had it so good, best ever’, ‘criticism is envy or jealousy’, ‘our politics of substance’, institutions are robust and working well’.  A cacophony of obvious lies followed by even more lies and then compounded lies. 

And always the micro and macro graft to ensure just enough currency and ‘stickability’ for those lies at local and national level.  What a model to offer young people contemplating life in politics - no wonder so many become deeply cynical about politics and politicians. 

The dominant practice of pursuing a very narrow legalistic and formalistic approach to accountability for officially sanctioned and entrenched political corruption compounds the situation. 

It can now be plausibly argued that Malta is now confronted by a reality of what could be described as radical political criminality.  Public evidence suggests that such criminality is now so deep-seated, widespread and commonplace that it is deemed ‘normal’, impervious to the rules and behaviours associated with democracy and accountability.    

It is to the great shame of Malta’s dominant political elite (from both tribes) that the country is debated locally and internationally as an example of an emerging kleptocracy, even if it is one that is popularly supported. 

For me, Malta’s governance continues to lack basic decency and humanity as evidenced in the hand washing of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galicia, the continuing official obliviousness to deaths from COVID-19 and the protections afforded to the perpetrators of business and financial crime. The public inquiry into that calculated murder highlights how entrenched corruption has become and how close the links are between the highest levels of government and organised crime. 

This is greatly facilitated by Malta’s highly centralised power structure with maximum power and minimal accountability for the Prime Minister and his (currently overblown) cabinet.

Despite this, our politicians travel on ‘serenely’ (what an inappropriate phrase) with precious little ‘holding to account’.  Judging by that key criterion of ‘real’ rather than formulaic accountability, democracy in Malta remains in deep trouble.