Malta remains a “flawed democracy”. Although its overall ranking slipped one place to 55 out of the 180 countries surveyed, Malta’s score in the 2023 Corruption Perception Index remains unchanged from last year: 51 out of 100.

Malta achieved its highest rating in 2015, scoring 60 out of 100 but then kept sliding, bar a small improvement in 2017.

The writing about rampant corruption has long been both on the wall and also clear in many a survey. Yet, Robert Abela remains in denial, whether conveniently or because he is truly convinced he “actually created structures to avoid corruption”.

This latest study proves such ‘structures’ are, at best, ineffective and, at worse, inexistent.

A Eurobarometer poll held less than a year ago – between April and May 2023 – had found that 92 per cent of the 514 Maltese nationals surveyed thought that corruption was widespread, up 13 per cent over the previous year.

Just as worrying is the fact that half of the respondents felt there is no point reporting corruption as the perpetrators will still go scot-free.

Although the government tries to keep the report under wraps, it has emerged that Malta has been labelled as “not in sufficient compliance” with recommendations made by the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption experts to improve the fight against criminality and raise standards in public life.

Similar proposals, also neglected by the Abela administration, were made by the public inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination.

These facts alone prove beyond reasonable doubt – a degree demanded in a court of law but not in politics – that Malta was a ‘flawed democracy’ on Joseph Muscat’s watch and remains a ‘flawed democracy’ under Abela.

Abela keeps repeating the same mantra: that he can only answer to what happened post-January 2020 and that the institutions are working.

It is clear by now that the corruption, sleaze and State capture that ‘crowned’ Muscat’s government continue, as one survey after another and a long string of scandals being unearthed to this very day show. Post-January 2020 times have not exactly been happy days for good governance and the rule of law.

Rather than leaving no stone unturned to ensure there is minimal wrongdoing and those responsible are punished, Abela proceeds in undermining and denigrating the very few institutions that really work. Just check how he treated a commissioner of standards in public life who was doing his utmost to truly raise the bar. Or the manner in which he keeps increasing the dosage of criticism aimed at certain members of the judiciary.

The prime minister has no qualms hitting out at inquiring magistrates for taking their time – as if he has the authority by law to determine how long a magisterial inquiry should take to conclude – but will never criticise those who appear to be dragging their feet investigating and prosecuting high-profile cases.

Transparency International notices a global decline in justice and rule of law since 2016, a “rise in authoritarianism” and a weakening of checks and balances in democracies.

Laws may be made to criminalise corruption and specialised institutions to address it set up. However, for the fight against corruption to make real inroads, it must be accompanied by an iron will.

A normal, functioning democracy built on rule-of-law will hound after all wrongdoers, and not spare the ones who are close to the people in power.

At this state, we can only see a prime minister sing his own praises to phantom achievements.