With hindsight, as always, we can see what went wrong for Labour. Yet, the many signs were there to be seen in the days leading up to the MEP elections.
Abela’s handling of the Vitals inquiry was a disaster. Here, both he and his party faced a serious dilemma. He was the prime minister who gave away €280 million to a private consortium whose full member list was and remains a well-guarded secret.
A responsible prime minister would have simply stopped payments and sued Steward in court for non-performance. As a commercial lawyer he knew how this went.
When the courts finally declared the deal null due to collusion and fraud allegedly committed by high officials in his administration, he quickly turned around and, with a straight face, claimed to have initiated an international arbitration against Steward. People thanked the opposition. Abela thanked himself.
When asked for details of the referral, he refused to divulge any. Yet, days before June 8, it became clear that it was Steward that sued Malta and not vice versa. They were claiming another €100 million under a secret side letter signed by Konrad Mizzi back in 2018.
Abela’s credibility sank even further when he refused to acknowledge the link between Steward, Shaukat Ali, Attaul Wasay Bhatti, Sri Ram Tumuluri and the huge consultancy payouts made to his predecessor, Joseph Muscat. Instead, he defended the major architects of the Vitals scam and would not or could not say where the Vitals millions ended up.
Abela defended Edward Scicluna’s refusal to step down as governor of the Central Bank when the latter faces criminal charges as a result of the Vitals inquiry.
Robert Abela’s approach to politics is simply unsustainable
Completely disconnected from public opinion, he also refuses to disclose the true whole extent of Muscat’s termination package. He even failed to go against Michelle Muscat’s call for a protest outside the court building the day her husband was first arraigned on fraud and money laundering charges and involvement in a criminal organisation.
In yet another bright idea, Abela allowed his MEP candidates to involve Muscat in their campaigns thinking that this would increase their share of the vote. All the PL candidates, bar the one from Gozo, failed to notice a growing public resentment towards the way their campaign was conducted.
But the most damaging decision for Labour was its orchestrated and neurotic attacks on Roberta Metsola. Their target was an exceptional politician, a mother and a wife, who was elected to lead a parliament that represented millions of EU citizens.
Metsola has a sound reputation based on integrity and is the exact opposite of what Muscat and Abela stand for. And, thankfully, she made us all proud. The Labour machine went for her throat trying to paint her as “anti-neutrality”, “pro-war” and “part of the Brussel’s establishment”.
Abela’s approach to politics is simply unsustainable. We deserve a better prime minister who calls a spade a spade. The people are angry that they have been robbed over and over again. The childish denials of the corrupt do not work anymore.
If the June 8 verdict was a “sound win”, the winner was the truth and not Labour. More and more people are now seeing through the deceitful propaganda that they are fed by PBS and the troll army.
Labour’s electoral strategy in the weeks leading up to June 8 clearly backfired. Those within the structures at Mile End who still have a minute sense of personal pride are starting to revolt, resign or make others resign.
Matters have started to reach a tipping point.
Within hours of the result, all that Abela could do to save face was to resurrect the abortion debate. But then came the videos showing Muscat happily dining at the Billionaires Club, in Porto Cervo. And that sort of explained it all.
Eddie Aquilina