Prime Minister Robert Abela will soon mark his first year in office. I was going to write ‘celebrate’, but that is too much, even for the die-hard dyed-in-the-wool over their eyes laburisti, for they know that not everything’s alright in Bobbyland.

But in his mind, Abela is an intrepid sailor with a steady hand on the tiller as he navigates the waves, second or otherwise. On December 20, Abela bragged to his captive audience in Xewkija that the government “change” in January was a “real one”. This astonishing braggadocio sits awkwardly with his narrative of “continuity” with the Muscat administration he pledged during his leadership campaign.

“No shadows were cast on the current executive,” he blustered shamelessly, while ignoring the biggest story of the day about his junior minister Rosianne Cutajar, who allegedly cavorted with Yorgen Fenech, knowing full well that he was the owner of 17 Black, in a property deal where she allegedly was handed over some €46,500 in a bag in a restaurant in Valletta. As you do.

We all waited with bated breath (not really) for Abela to do the right thing and fire Cutajar, but true to form, he wilted under pressure and waffled about waiting for the decision of the Standards czar instead. Now where did we hear that before? Oh yes, merely a few days earlier when another member of his cabinet, Minister of Infrastructure Ian Borg, who likes to “get things done” at our expense, is facing the insalubrious claim that he bought a plot of land in Rabat from a man with mental health issues at a price way below market value.

The court found that Borg’s testimony lacked “credibility”. But Abela, whose idea of credibility means spinning facts to the sheeple on the party station thought otherwise. What about Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis who exchanged some 700 messages on WhatsApp with the alleged mastermind behind the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia?

What did Abela do?

You know the drill. Nothing.

Such a stellar grip you’ve got there, prime minister. You can’t run a bath, let alone a country.

Truth is always the first casualty with populist leaders

Real leaders are not afraid to take the tough decisions. If there ever was a year that a leader had to show his or her leadership mettle, surely it was 2020. The country applauded the swift decisions taken to introduce measures to control COVID-19, but then what did Abela do next? He decided to derail the strategy of his own health authorities by wandering around without a mask, wantonly flouting social distancing measures, dishing out amnesty to people who broke quarantine measures and supporting the “mechanisms” of his other stellar member of his cabinet, Julia Farrugia Portelli. All because the tourism lobby was telling him to jump. Instead of showing his mettle, all he did was to say “How high”?

High. That’s the price the vulnerable and the families of the some 200 plus COVID-19 victims who succumbed to the virus are paying, because the prime minister wanted us to “enjoy our summer”, telling us over and over that “everything is under control”, all the while numbers spiked and deaths soared.

I was gobsmacked to see Abela’s grandstanding when the vaccine boxes made it to Malta. You would think things weren’t quite under control after all.

Truth is always the first casualty with populist leaders. In her 1967 essay ‘Truth and Politics’, the philosopher Hannah Arendt said, “Unwelcome opinion can be argued with, rejected, or compromised upon, but unwelcome facts possess an infuriating stubbornness that nothing can move except plain lies.”

And, boy, hasn’t Abela been economical with the truth throughout the year! Take, for example, another gem from the Xewkija Sunday sermon where he said, with a straight face, that “it is [his] duty to protect the [Daphne Caruana Galizia] public inquiry from those seeking to undermine it”. Yes, really. From the man who has repeatedly attempted to stop it.

When the board of inquiry told him in no uncertain terms to fly a kite, he riposted ominously that there will be “consequences”. Then he regaled us with a furious backpedal in Xewkija. If climbing mirrors were an Olympic sport, Abela would win the gold medal.

News is also made of enduring images. And as the saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words. The enduring images of Abela’s premiership so far are not the ones where he shuffles in his flip-flops while eating ice cream, or the one where he takes a spinning class (the irony), or the one on his boat, all three in Sicily, while Malta was in the grip of the second wave. For me, the two enduring images were the ones where he is standing right behind Joseph Muscat when the latter was asked when he last met with Fenech, and the other image is the day after Abela won the leadership race. The new prime minister is pictured wreathed in smiles standing beside Muscat.

Abela is still standing behind Muscat. He is still shoulder-to-shoulder with Muscat. All his actions or lack thereof, have been in preservation and the protection of the legacy of his predecessor, his kingmaker.

So no, I hate to burst your self-important bubble, Abela. There has been no change at all this past year, just seamless continuity. It should have been the year when you took control, but it appears that you never had control over anything, at any time.

Your premiership is nearly a year old. What do you want to be when you grow up? What would you choose in your quċċija? A spine?

Chance would be a fine thing.

Alessandra Dee Crespo, president-elect, Repubblika