Impromptu public comments are an occupational hazard for the political class and the odd performer. “They tried to twist everything,” Michelle Muscat said live on air during a fundraising marathon for the Labour Party on Friday (charity begins and ends at home for political parties), “but people out there know the truth.”
Ms Muscat was no doubt unaware of the irony, especially as her target was the media, and given that her remarks followed those of her husband Prime Minister who, now resigned to his political end being nigh, is doing what he can to pluck a legacy from the raging inferno.
Saying he is paying the political price for the fallout from the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder investigation may earn him a modicum of sympathy, but not when he frames it – any pun is completely unintended – in the heroic context of succeeding to solve a politically-linked murder where his predecessors had failed.
Getting into the merits of the Karin Grech and Raymond Caruana killings is unhelpful, but the bottom line is that prime ministers should never assume the roles of investigators especially, but especially when their colleagues may be implicated.
Yet, like so many facets to the Daphne Caruana Galizia case, Muscat’s allusion to these incidents is nothing but an unhelpful diversion. Since he was elected on the back of the largest majority seen in Malta’s history six years ago, when a unique opportunity truly beckoned for him, the prime minister has become accustomed to spin cycles. Yet this is one that will not wash. As his wife said, people out there know the truth; or at least enough of it to draw informed conclusions.
The critical question in the prime minister’s regard is whether people are closer to knowing the truth because of his actions or in spite of him?
The evidence, according to testimony in court so far, suggests that the three men who carried out the murder were contracted by a middleman who was in turn commissioned by a mastermind.
Are people closer to knowing the truth because of the PM’s actions or in spite of him?
Both the prime minister and his chief of staff have been aware of the identity of the alleged mastermind and self-confessed middleman for at least the past 12 months, probably longer. Furthermore, Joseph Muscat knew that his chief of staff was privy to material facts related to the investigation and, more importantly, that the latter was linked to the mastermind through friendship and a secret company registered overseas.
The prime minister therefore lost any opportunity to emerge from this situation with a semblance of credibility when he failed to act on this situation.
It is also pertinent to highlight who brought the investigation into the public domain after a long period of dormancy. Was it the prime minister?
Or was it Times of Malta’s journalists, who published a story two months ago that ripped apart the ground under Joseph Muscat’s feet, undoubtedly with the assistance of a few brave and upstanding informants?
The prime minister has gone on record as saying he wishes to say more about the case at an appropriate juncture. Time will tell whether his reasons are genuine. But after resisting tooth and nail to leave office immediately, he has displayed absolutely no hesitation in going through every motion to glorify his inglorious departure.
His supporters – make no mistake, he still has many – have rallied behind both him and the Labour Party, which has gone to great lengths to stress it has a mandate to govern, while angry protesters have taken to the streets on an almost daily basis calling for justice as well as full and immediate accountability.
Protesters do not just have a right to protest; they have a duty. But they also have a responsibility to ensure they too respect the values they espouse.
The quest for truth is neither helped by egg-throwing, nor media infighting, nor hurling abuse through social media, and certainly not through taking pot shots at the president and bishops who called for unity as the temperature – across the breadth of political spectrum – threatened to reach boiling point. Above all, the cause is not helped by claims that any particular grouping speaks on behalf of all the people.
Because if there is one truth everyone should acknowledge right now, it is that the nation is as divided as ever.
And a healing process can only begin once the prime minister leaves and justice is done.
Steve Mallia is former editor-in-chief of Times of Malta.