The roadmap to sleaze

Joseph Muscat’s meteoric rise to power in 2013 was wrapped in reformist language. But beneath the polished image lay a different reality, one that reveals he was not interested in building a better Malta but in constructing a political machine fuelled by loyalty, secrecy and a circle of corruption. Far from championing good governance, Muscat built a roadmap for control and self-enrichment, cloaked in the branding of renewal.

From the moment he became Labour leader in 2008, Muscat had begun reengineering the Malta Labour Party to serve as a vehicle for his ambitions. He discarded the old socialist branding, redesigned the party’s identity and recast himself as “moderate” and “modern European”, a far cry from the populist, anti-EU firebrand he had been just years earlier.

The erasure of his past, including the erasure of recordings of his infamous Made in Brussels TV series on Super One TV, in which he had used populist rhetoric and other scare tactics to oppose EU membership, was a deliberate rewrite of his public persona. The public’s short-term memory served him well because most accepted his shallow makeover. He managed to sell what he himself had depicted as black as now being white.

Behind the scenes, Muscat was laying the groundwork for something else entirely. Well before 2013, he had begun meeting privately with business interests, using his growing influence, and Lawrence Gonzi’s looming defeat, to secure support and funding. In these back-room conversations, Muscat presented himself as a prime minister-in-waiting who was open for business and willing to make deals. The ‘fourth floor’ at Labour headquarters became the epicentre of informal meetings, where promises were made and expectations were set.

Once in power, the agenda became clear: reward loyalty, suppress dissent and manipulate institutions. Muscat’s government immediately took actions that raised eyebrows, and rightly so. Early on, he claimed a €7,000 yearly allowance for using his personal car for official duties, a scheme meant for senior civil servants. This small but telling act signalled that perks came first, integrity came second. A far cry indeed from his crying wolf over the salary increase to Gonzi’s ministers!

The sleaze would escalate quickly, from pennies to pounds to more. Take the Café Premier scandal, for example. The government, with Muscat’s personal involvement, paid €4.2 million of public funds to buy back a property from a business with outstanding debts. The deal included a €210,000 ‘brokerage fee’ for the owners, despite their failure to pay rent. The National Audit Office later condemned the process as opaque, poorly governed and unjustified.

Yet, no one was ever held accountable and the whole issue was swept under the carpets of Castille. Then there was the Gaffarena affair: a series of land deals so blatantly corrupt that they stunned even the most jaded observers. In mere weeks, a politically connected businessman acquired strategic property, sold it back to the government for more than 10 times the price and walked away with land and cash worth millions. This too happened on Muscat’s watch and with the blessing of his appointees.

Once in power, the agenda became clear: reward loyalty, suppress dissent and manipulate institutions- Eddie Aquilina

These were not isolated incidents. They were early indicators of a government designed not for service but for extraction. Even as these scandals mounted, Muscat’s propaganda machine kept spinning the tale of reform. Slick messaging and tightly controlled public appearances reinforced the illusion that his administration was progressive and clean. The slogan Malta Tagħna Lkoll was repeated, masking a reality in which access to power and opportunity was increasingly limited to the well-connected. Any criticism was labelled as negative and the exposure of corruption was branded as extremist.

Meanwhile, Muscat courted Malta’s liberal and progressive communities, posing as a liberal reformer. Yet, this, too, was part of the deception. Those few who remembered his anti-EU rhetoric from the early 2000s linking EU membership to abortion and immigration watched in stunned silence as he recast himself as a liberal icon. His past was not just forgotten; it had been erased, like the Made in Brussels tapes, history was sanitised in Orwellian fashion. His machine operated on the 1984 notion that “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”. It had managed to destroy the very idea of an objective truth, leaving only what it declared as being real at any given moment.

By the time the Panama Papers hit in 2016, exposing the secret offshore dealings of his closest allies, it was clear that the rot ran deep.

Konrad Mizzi, Muscat’s right-hand man, and Keith Schembri, his chief of staff, were revealed to have opened companies in Panama just after the 2013 election.

These revelations didn’t break the machine, at least not immediately. Muscat circled the wagons, defended his allies and painted critics as enemies. But the damage had been done.

The roadmap that brought him to power was not paved with ideals but with favours and secrets.

The most tragic element in all of this was that Maltese voters were not just misled; they were duped into thinking they saw a new dawn.

In reality, they were watching the birth of a system designed to entrench power, protect the corrupt and feed off public trust. The myth was echoed in the song sung at Labour gatherings – Sebaħ jum, telgħet xemx, Joseph tagħna bħalu m’hemmx. A cult, albeit not anymore with the numbers that had elected him, was born. 

This was no accident. It had been the plan all along.

This is the second of a four-part series on Joseph Muscat’s politics and legacy. The first appeared here: https://timesofmalta.com/article/the-myth-joseph-muscat-political-genius.1113931

Eddie Aquilina