Panama Papers may slowly slip out of the news pages but it will not disappear from public discourse. As jokes on ‘the Panama company’ and the ‘bank account in Dubai’ persist, Kurt Sansone revisits the questions that linger.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said it would be the people who decide whether the Panama affair is case closed or not.

Speaking matter-of-factly outside of the Manoel Theatre, where he had just unveiled free access for Maltese residents to a music education app, Dr Muscat was playing the business-as-usual card.

His government had won a vote of confidence the previous week; he had just reshuffled the Cabinet and was almost certain his parliamentary group would, two days later, reject a motion of no confidence in Dr Mizzi.

Buoyed by the turnout of supporters at last Sunday’s mass meeting, Dr Muscat seems to have concluded that the Panama affair’s days on the newsstands are numbered.

This weekend, he was in Italy with his chief of staff, Keith Schembri, to address a seminar alongside Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

To casual observers, it is clear the Prime Minister has decided to put the issue behind him and get on with running the country.

He has said his government must work harder in the next two years to convince people it is the better alternative despite the mistakes committed by some ministers.

The attempt to close the Panama chapter will not, however, erase it from the public psyche, with Panama and its ramifications having been written into many a joke.

Panama also evokes anger among those who expected better from the party they voted for in 2013 on the premise that it would change the way politics is done.

Like reminders on paper, the lingering questions will remain stuck in the public psyche and could very well return to haunt Dr Muscat as he goes on, business as usual, until the next election.

Why did government MPs who wanted Mizzi to step down vote against the motion of no confidence in him in Parliament?

This is probably a symptom of a political system that does not allow party dissent to translate itself into parliamentary rebellion. Anyone on the Labour side voting to remove a colleague would have had to face the opprobrium of party diehards, who would interpret this as handing the Opposition an undeserved victory. While strong criticism may be tolerated, voting against is like crossing an imaginary line of no return. Anthropologist Ranier Fsadni interpreted Muscat’s show of force during Workers’ Day as a message to those in the party calling for Mizzi’s head to stand down and accept his decision to clip the minister’s wings as the best solution to the impasse.

Does the Prime Minister believe it is acceptable for a minister to have a company in Panama or not?

Muscat Version 1.0 – the Prime Minister who spoke at the end of February when the scandal erupted – believes there is nothing wrong with a minister holding a company in secretive Panama so long as it is declared. Muscat Version 2.0 – the Prime Minister who reshuffled his Cabinet two weeks ago – believes the choice of Panama was ill-advised and naive. The probability is the Prime Minister still believes Version 1.0 but was forced by growing public misgivings and internal disquiet to act and acknowledge Mizzi and Schembri’s choices were not salutary.

The Prime Minister’s transition may have also been prompted by the revelation that the two men, through their financial advisor, had made nine attempts to open bank accounts linked to their Panama companies in which money from recycling operations and online gaming was to be deposited.

Why has Konrad Mizzi resigned as Labour deputy leader but saw fit to stay on as minister?

Mizzi’s rebuke had to appear substantial to try to placate public discontent. But the Prime Minister could never justify removing Mizzi from Cabinet while retaining his chief of staff, Keith Schembri. This prompted the decision to clip Mizzi’s wings. However, the resignation from deputy leader had a different audience in mind.

Party insiders argue it was the way to calm growing discontent within the Labour Party over the Panama affair. The unease was epitomised by its former secretary general Jason Micallef’s Facebook rant that the behaviour of the “untouchables” risked sinking the ship, its captain and those who had been on board through thick and thin. The reference was clearly to Mizzi and Schembri, viewed by many as ‘Johnny-come-latelies’ to the party. The seemingly irrational decision still prompts the question: if Mizzi’s actions disqualified him from the post of deputy leader, why wasn’t the same yardstick used for Cabinet?

Why does the Prime Minister believe the ‘rebuke’ is a sufficient measure?

The rebuke only concerns one of the guilty pair. Schembri was left untouched in his post and Muscat has insisted he still enjoys his trust. Muscat has tried couching his decision as being “proportionate” to Mizzi’s actions, given there was no evidence of corruption. However, government sources insist the real reason is that Mizzi could have never been removed from the Cabinet unless action were taken against Schembri. The Prime Minister has repeatedly tried to deflect attention from Schembri throughout the crisis by focusing on Mizzi, who is an elected person. Muscat never considered removing Schembri, a very close friend who is credited with running the Labour Party’s slick and successful electoral campaign. In these circumstances, Mizzi’s rebuke was the acceptable sacrifice short of removing both men.

Why did Joseph Muscat not take immediate action when he saw there was no need to wait for the audits after all?

This falls squarely within the Prime Minister’s evolving forma mentis as the Panama affair unravelled over the past two months. The announcement of an independent audit – of which no details are available yet – was intended to placate anger and concern soon after the revelations started coming out. When public discontent did not dissipate, the Prime Minister was forced to act, especially when he himself acknowledged that the issue was not only one of legality but also of correctness. With an impending motion of no confidence in Mizzi looming, he could not risk putting additional moral pressure on MPs who wanted the minister to resign. However, the same rationale underpinning Muscat’s decision now could have easily applied two months ago, when things were already clear enough.

Will Muscat now use the same yardstick when dealing with any transgressions by other ministers? Has his authority been undermined?

It is pretty much a wait-and-see scenario, but after taking so long to decide on the Panama affair and then leaving Mizzi in Cabinet, it is plausible that a situation is foreseeable where rebuking a minister could become a tricky affair.