There were no winners from the prime minister’s unravelling before journalists a few days ago.

Robert Abela descended into a populist tirade, launching himself against the independent media, dismissing it as fake news, insulting the journalist interviewing him on the spot, and violently escalating his rhetoric against critics.

These are not the hallmarks of a serene prime minister and far less one suitable to be running a democratic country.

But the explanation is obvious: Robert Abela is at his weakest and he knows it.

There are no justifications for defending the indefensible. And his dwindling public support in large part stems from the internal dissent he faces from genuine Labourites who are baffled that so much political capital is expended on defending criminality. He has become burdened by a reputation for faltering in his stances.

On the Jean Paul Sofia inquiry, he ordered his MPs to vote against their conscience and then U-turned. And he allowed the disgraced Rosianne Cutajar to defy him by returning to the Labour Party without the apology the prime minister asked for.

Within Labour, Abela has proven himself weak, beholden to a corrupt clique whose support he enjoys insofar as he continues to shield them from justice.

The intentions behind Abela’s bare-faced assault on everybody who doesn’t agree with him are as transparent as his attack was vicious. His moral acrobatics frame those who expose wrongdoing as the wrongdoers themselves.

According to Abela’s warped account, journalists are the ones causing him headaches, not the corrupt.

For Abela, it is more worthwhile to make it more difficult to expose and prosecute wrongdoing than to actually crack down on illegality. It is a disconcerting indictment of just how rotten the heart of government has grown.

In fact, the evidence that emerged in the last years paints a despicable picture of a machinery of government hijacked to rob the Maltese people blind.

Abela had every chance to distance himself from the same cabal that was ousted from his own party.

He had the chance to present his own vision over that of his tarnished predecessor. His electoral victory should have confirmed his mandate.

Abela wants a world without critics, where everybody does what he says, from journalists to civil servants to activists, and where parliament is reduced to rubber-stamping his whims into law- David Casa

Instead, his latest crackdown on “so-called” civil society is an exercise in intimidation. While citing supposed reforms – none of which improves the state’s anti-corruption framework – he even mentioned the Daphne inquiry, without any sense of irony that the same inquiry condemned precisely the same rhetoric he has begun to employ.

That hypocrisy is not new. In Brussels, his emissaries extol the virtues of a justice system that has resulted in prosecutions. In Malta, Abela fumes at the same fact, seeking to close down the legal mechanisms that functioned despite the best efforts of his administration to keep scandals under wraps.

To cling to power, Abela is risking doing serious harm to the country. The state of the rule of law in Malta has already been seriously eroded. Public dissatisfaction is a serious problem. If he proceeds to curtail the last measures that have yielded results in holding the corrupt accountable, he will be inviting an unprecedented level of scrutiny on the country. Undoubtedly, he will blame his opponents for his own doing. It is a short-sighted and deeply destructive path.

If there is a law that Abela should have proposed, it is to shield civil servants from the whims of ministers who are increasingly unbothered by morality or legality.

The civil service should affect policy but do so within the remits of the law. What Abela is proposing is to blackmail civil servants, offering protection only if they fall in line with the dictates of his cabinet.

Abela wants a world without critics, where everybody does what he says, from journalists to civil servants to activists, and where parliament is reduced to rubber-stamping his whims into law.

People want an end to politicians who think they are above the law.

My loyalty, as ever, is with the law-abiding citizens in Malta and Gozo who work and study to aspire to a better version of the country than the one they are seeing unfold before their eyes.

From that loyalty, a warning: there will be serious consequences for the wholesale dismantling of the rule of law in our country.

David Casa

David Casa is a Nationalist MEP.