Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has grown a reputation as a skilful criticism dodger, which has permeated far beyond our shores.
During a grilling on BBC last year, Muscat earned the title of ‘The artful dodger of Europe’ for his tactical shrewdness in drawing attention away from his hypocritical behaviour as head of government. When the interviewer referred to him as “passport-seller-in-chief”, he denied that Maltese passports were being sold and said it was just a matter of allowing people to invest in the country.
Muscat clearly makes an effort to deceive people by his carefully calculated falsehoods. A year ago, he denied that he had given his consent to be added to a secret Labour Facebook hate group, of which he was a member for seven years. He heinously suggested that a Facebook account user might not know that he has been added to a group, when it is known that a notification of approval as group member is received by the user following an invitation by a friend who is already a group member.
One also recalls how, in June 2017, as freshly re-elected Prime Minister of Malta, Muscat went on the defensive and dodged questions fielded during the plenary session of the European Parliament about rule of law in Malta and the leaks from the Panama Papers linked to his government.
He bragged that his government was the first to remove time-barring on politicians in Malta, but then the law on standards in public life was enacted that allowed politicians to escape scrutiny over past abuses of power by precluding investigation into breaches of statutory or ethical duties committed before October 30, 2018.
When, during the same plenary session, Muscat was pressed to say why he left Minister Konrad Mizzi in Cabinet despite having opened a secret offshore shell company registered in Panama under a tax evasion scheme, he tried to fend off the question by saying that it was not only Maltese politicians who are mentioned in the Panama Papers.
The truth is that Mizzi remained the only EU minister revealed to be linked to offshore companies in Panama, after the Spanish industry minister resigned within a few days of having been mentioned in the Panama Papers. There was also Iceland’s Prime Minister who resigned soon after it became known that his wife owned an offshore secret account registered in Panama.
Muscat refuses interviews or to participate in debates where he anticipates the possibility of ending up with his back against the wall. Recently, Muscat evaded a question put to him by journalists on whether he agreed with his nominee for European Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli when, during her grilling by the European Parliament, she declared that she would have done things totally differently from Mizzi regarding his setting up of a Panama company. Muscat dodged the question by simply saying that he would prefer not to comment on the actions of others.
Muscat also skirted a question about the business plans that his Chief of Staff Keith Schembri had with Dubai company 17 Black belonging to Yorgen Fenech, the CEO of the Tumas Group and director and co-owner of Electrogas Malta Ltd. He said that it would be a matter of curiosity to ask Schembri about these plans.
Under the excuse of it being a leading question, Muscat refused to answer when he was asked about the reason behind Fenech’s engagement in a commercial relationship with Mizzi and Schembri, who were revealed to be set to receive €150,000 monthly in their Panama companies from 17 Black and another Dubai company.
This payment followed a multimillion-euro deal that Mizzi signed with Electrogas.
Muscat clearly wants to avert attention from the Panama offshore intrigues of Schembri and Mizzi and has been doing his best to block an inquiry on Panama Papers.
He has even joined these two close allies in the filing of an appeal against a magistrate’s decision to investigate whether they had breached money-laundering laws by opening their tax evasion companies.
Apart from harming the good name of the country, Muscat has done immense damage to his own reputation when he deterred repetitive warnings by the EU about the weakening of the rule of law in Malta, stemming from the failure on the part of the police to investigate corruption involving high government officials.
While portraying himself as some sort of democratic leader, in practice, Muscat adopts an authoritarian style of leadership and strays away from the ideals of justice.
In his thirst for power, Muscat has threatened parliamentary independence by dishing out well-paid jobs to backbench MPs on the government’s side, thus keeping them at his whim. Muscat has also undermined judicial independence through his uncircumscribed statutory discretion to appoint judges and magistrates, which discretion the Venice Commission wants to be removed from his hands.
Apart from Marlene Farrugia who resigned from the Labour Party, all other Labour MPs have just followed Muscat’s orders like a herd of sheep even when it meant going against their morals and beliefs. A number of high-level Labour Party figures criticised Mizzi about the scandal connected to his secretly owned Panama company. Muscat’s own predecessor Alfred Sant called for Mizzi to step down from minister, while Labour MPs Godfrey Farrugia and Minister Evarist Bartolo said they would have themselves resigned if they were in Mizzi’s shoes.
Muscat refuses to undertake interviews or participate in debates where he anticipates the possibility of ending up with his back against the wall
Muscat keeps the Labour parliamentary group under his strict control. He refused to give a free vote on two parliamentary motions of no confidence in Mizzi and another parliamentary motion calling him to request the resignation of Schembri as the person politically responsible for his appointment. All Labour MPs bowed down to Muscat and backed Mizzi and Schembri by voting against the motions. Godfrey Farrugia later said he regretted his vote after resigning from the Labour Party.
Together with Mizzi, Economy Minister Chris Cardona and Finance Minister Edward Scicluna have been declared by the Constitutional Court as suspects to have broken the criminal law through behaviour that falls under the definition of money laundering, in connection with the suspicious multimillion hospitals concession deal entered with Vitals.
Ex-Labour minister Helena Dalli was one of the Labour MPs who supported Mizzi after his scandal broke out and she voted against all three motions. However, during her recent grilling by the European Parliament in connection with her nomination for European Equality Commissioner, Dalli denounced Mizzi’s actions with the apparent intention of avoiding losing votes required for her confirmation.
Three years ago, during a similar grilling by the European Parliament in connection with the nomination of ex-Labour minister Leo Brincat to the EU Court of Auditors, Brincat had given to understand that if he had been given a free vote by Muscat he would not have voted against the parliamentary motions of no confidence in Mizzi.
However, Brincat failed to convince the European Parliament that he was not tarnished by the stain of the Panama Papers scandal, and he suffered the consequences as the European Parliament rejected his nomination by an overwhelming majority.
He was only appointed to the position after the European Council decided to overturn the Parliament’s vote.
Comparatively, Dalli’s path to her portfolio was much smoother than that of Brincat. Although like him she did not back the motions of no confidence in Mizzi, she still managed to secure the two-thirds of votes of the European Parliament required to confirm her nomination as European Equality Commissioner.
While giving due recognition to Dalli’s competences, positive track record on equality issues, and her good performance during the grilling, one must not underestimate the backing given to her by the Nationalist Party in Opposition as a member of the European People’s Party which is the largest group in the European Parliament.
This support has undoubtably helped Dalli obtain the vote of the EPP, which had signalled that it would be in favour of her nomination, in addition to the vote of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats to which the Labour Party is affiliated. In the case of Brincat, the EPP had voted against his nomination.
The Nationalist Party has undoubtably served as a buffer to Dalli against the negative outcome that could befall her.
Muscat is riding the wave of economic growth and prosperity that the country is experiencing, while at the same time exploiting to his advantage the current division within the opposition party. The Latin word ‘invictus’ that he has tattooed shows that he considers himself to be invincible following a series of landslide general and local councils’ electoral victories.
But one thing he can rest assured of is that the harm he has inflicted on the country will sooner or later boomerang on him and no amount of dodging would save him.
Denis Tanti is a former assistant director (industrial and employment relations) in the Ministry for Health.