“We won’t abandon you, prime minister. We’ll defend you from the PN attacks.” This surreal statement was made by the disgraceful Rosianne Cutajar. She was invited to address Labour’s election campaign event at Marsascala.
“We will be there for you, prime minister,” she insisted.
Cutajar should have been suspended from parliament, expelled from the party, disciplined by the Council of Europe and prosecuted for her alleged crimes. Instead, Robert Abela lets her run on the party ticket and actively promotes her.
Abela and Cutajar have struck a mutually beneficial satanic pact, its cost paid by the nation.
Abela sends out a clear message: no matter how vile your behaviour, how serious your infractions, how damaging your actions, Abela will defend you. On one condition: your unwavering and undying pledge of loyalty to him; not to the party, not to the country.
“My decision to resign last year was my most difficult decision,” Cutajar announced. Her message was: I resigned of my own free will. Robert didn’t make me resign. Don’t blame him.
“How could I accept to be used by the PN to damage the prime minister and the Labour Party,” she asked. She wasn’t used by the PN. She was only used by whoever allegedly paid her tens of thousands of euros to shoot down, at the Council of Europe, an independent inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination. Cutajar is painting herself as the martyr who sacrificed herself to protect Abela. “I shouldered the burden in a mature way,” she falsely proclaimed.
Maturity is the antithesis of Cutajar. There was nothing mature about accepting €9,000 from a man accused of money laundering and complicity to murder; nothing mature about accepting bagfuls of cash for a multi-million euro sale of an Mdina property to the same individual. There was nothing mature in making a fool of herself at the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe; nothing mature about lying to the standards commissioner or getting her loyal sidekick, Charles Farrugia, it-Tikka to lie on her behalf.
Robert Abela gets even the most obvious calls wrong – a stark reminder of his rank unfitness for office
There was nothing mature in concealing the thousands of euros she made or her failure to declare them in her tax returns or parliamentary asset declaration; nothing mature about her farcical stunts and her abuse of the elderly and the children she photographed for her political promotion without permission. There was certainly nothing mature in calling Claudette Buttigieg a whore in parliament; and definitely nothing mature in proclaiming your own maturity.
Cutajar knows exactly what she’s been up to. She knows she’s as crooked as a corkscrew. So does Abela. He removed her from Malta’s delegation to the Council of Europe to shield her from breach of conduct accusations before the council’s rules committee. Abela knew Cutajar would be found guilty. Rather than let justice take its course, he aborted the proceedings against her.
That guilty verdict would have been added to the standards commissioner’s guilty verdict on Cutajar. The commissioner’s report was adopted by the parliamentary standards committee and Cutajar was sanctioned. Thanks to the obsequious Anġlu Farrugia, Cutajar’s punishment was a polite letter informing her she had been sanctioned.
“We will defend you when you are attacked by the PN,” was Cutajar’s veiled threat to Abela. Prime minister, you have your skeletons too, like I do. You defend me and I will defend you. But if you abandon me…
What does Abela’s gym buddy know about him? Why does Cutajar have Abela wrapped around her little finger? Why is Cutajar protected while Silvio Grixti, Etienne Grech and Victor Vella rudely dumped?
Despite being sanctioned by the parliamentary standards committee, Abela appointed her health parliamentary committee chair. He didn’t need to. But Abela was obliged to rehabilitate her. Even his grassroots were livid that Cutajar, who had so embarrassed the country and damaged the party, was rewarded instead of castigated.
Abela is now actively promoting an MP who has caused no end of grief. “Now it is up to the public to decide whether Cutajar is part of Malta’s parliament,” Abela cynically commented. He deviously lets the crowd decide.
He knows the crowd will always choose Barabbas. Didn’t the crowd choose Konrad Mizzi too, with a fourfold increase in first-count votes in 2017? Didn’t the public decide to elect Mizzi? So why did Abela chuck him out? Didn’t the crowd also choose the chief Barabbas – Joseph Muscat? And where is he now?
Abela is cynically exploiting majoritarianism to achieve his devious ends. He recruits the ‘fickle crowd’ ‒ the ‘mobile vulgus’ ‒ to do his dirty work. The Greeks considered ochlocracy, mob rule, as one of the three bad forms of government, together with tyranny and oligarchy.
Rather than seeking the interests of the whole nation, Abela seeks his own exclusive interests and those of his close allies; and the interests of those who hold him to ransom.
Abela is following in Muscat’s footsteps. Muscat used his electoral mandate to exonerate Mizzi and his filthy behaviour. Abela is seeking a mandate to absolve Cutajar and save his own skin. He abuses the trust of Labour’s supporters to legitimise the inappropriate and irresponsible rehabilitation of a loose cannon. He substitutes sober diligent assessment of candidates’ suitability for the furious passions of an electorate heavily bombarded by Abela’s party propaganda.
Abela and Cutajar have taken an extreme oath of allegiance for their own protection. They have taken a code of silence in the face of questioning by outsiders, willfully concealing illegality, immorality and indecency.
Abela’s decisions reveal his appalling lack of integrity, his abject disregard for decency. In pursuit of his own interests he foists on the nation a totally inept, dangerous and undignified candidate whose only virtues are arrogance, vulgarity and abysmal judgement.
Abela even allows Anton Refalo, who took a piece of history to place near his swimming pool, to run for Labour. Abela gets even the most obvious calls wrong – a stark reminder of his rank unfitness for office.