If Malta’s political crisis is growing darker and deeper, it is because the disgraced, sleaze-splattered Prime Minister who plunged us into this morass cannot be the one to pull us out. On the contrary, we must sink further because of the daily wriggling Joseph Muscat is obliged to perform. He must twist and turn so that his words today somehow do not blatantly contradict those of yesterday, while still allowing for whatever gyrations tomorrow might demand.
Yet, it evidently still is possible for ordinarily reasonable people to ask those of us who demand that Muscat leave now: “Isn’t it enough that Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi are gone, and that Muscat is leaving in five weeks? Aren’t you the ones provoking the very instability that you denounce? Haven’t you won enough concessions?”
These questions may be well meant but they are obviously also cynical. To ask whether Muscat’s denouncers have “won enough” is to assume that their demands are part of a partisan game. So here are the three main reasons why these demands are principled.
First, Muscat has disqualified himself as guarantor that no one is above the law. He brazenly broke the law before the world’s media when he locked national and international journalists up in a room, under the eye of hired thugs.
Let us not sanitise what happened. This was not a case of ‘temporarily preventing’ journalists from leaving a room. It was illegal detention. The fact that it only endured for some 20 minutes simply means that the law was not broken for long – not that the law was not broken.
The people who enforced this detention were not the forces of law and order. They were – to go by the handful who have been indentified – a private partisan militia (dressed in black for good measure).
Since then, despite all questions asked, Muscat has neither apologised nor explained. He may be on his way out but he behaves more arrogantly in public than he ever has. If he breaks the law so openly, what guarantee do we have about what’s going on behind the scenes?
Our deep shame at what is being allowed to happen is the very expression of our democratic maturity. We know what a true democracy looks like
To give up on this point is to give up on democracy thrice over. It gives up on the principle that no one is above the law. It accepts ‘a little bit’ of thug rule, just as long as it’s ‘not too much’. It overlooks the overriding aim of saving what’s left of Malta’s reputation – which this episode has continued to stain.
Second, to be satisfied that we’ll be rid of Muscat in five weeks is to give up on justice. Liberal justice is about transparent process as much as it is about fundamental rights and accountability. How can we be satisfied that the full facts will emerge when Muscat is in a position to control which facts do emerge?
This is not a theoretical question but a practical one. Over the past week, Schembri has been alleged to be involved in three ways in the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination.
This newspaper has published the note handwritten by Melvin Theuma, the middleman, naming Schembri as one of the masterminds. Since then, Theuma has claimed no direct knowledge of this – although everyone is mindful that he is the beneficiary of immunity granted by Muscat, Schembri’s best friend according to Schembri himself.
Even if we grant Theuma has no direct knowledge, there is the photo of Schembri with Theuma, taken in Castille. Theuma is – as the euphemism says – a person long known to the police. What kind of intimacy led Schembri to pose for such a photo at Castille, of all places?
Then there is Yorgen Fenech’s claim that he was fed information about the investigation by Schembri. A desperado’s lie? It could all be put to rest by an official statement confirming or denying the alleged, tracked phone calls between Fenech and Schembri right up to Fenech’s attempted flight.
But we’ve had no such statement, despite other claims having been denied.
And, if that were not enough, there are the allegations – denied by Schembri but from no official quarter – that Schembri attempted to frame Chris Cardona with the assassination.
Despite these grave allegations, we have had no clarifications. Schembri roams free. Indeed, he still basks in the gratitude publicly expressed by Muscat, who has not distanced himself by a jot from Schembri.
As long as Muscat is in power, flexing his power by breaking the law publicly and with impunity, can we be sure that justice will be done?
Third, it is a mistake to think that all Labour has to do is hang on for five weeks, rendered shorter by the Christmas interlude. If the outstanding questions are not cleared up now, under an interim prime minister, before a new Labour leader and prime minister is sworn in, the questions will dog the new government and undermine it.
The new prime minister will enter office already with credibility dented, having gone along with this charade. He or she will be faced with the same questions but possibly with far less ability to answer them satisfactorily. Enough time would have passed to enable the contamination or erasure of evidence – or at least for reasonable suspicion to persist that that is what happened.
So, it’s for these three principal reasons that Muscat must go now. A five-week reprieve damages further our democracy and our chances of justice.
To those who say we need to mature as a democracy, our reply is this: Our deep shame at what is being allowed to happen is the very expression of our democratic maturity. We know what a true democracy looks like. It seems like our authorities are staffed by men and women who do not.