The clouds over Europe keep getting darker and darker as the war in Ukraine keeps getting more and more horrific. We learnt this week that the Russian army has been murdering innocent civilians, torturing families including children and raping women. I watch the news with hopelessness and silent tears. The ‘never again’ that has been uttered every Remembrance Day for the last 75 years is happening now.
In all of this, there has been a small beacon of light for us: Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament has been exemplary in her leading the EU member states in the fight for Ukraine.
Since her election to the post in January, it’s like she’s been given a new lease of life: she’s become a politician who no longer measures her words for the sake of partisan politics.
We only used to see glimpses of this every now and then, such as when she steadfastly refused to shake the hands of the disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat. Now, as EP president, she never minces her words: she makes it abundantly clear that Vladimir Putin has to buzz off. She does not moderate her actions either, as we saw last week when she travelled across war-torn Ukraine to show support.
Metsola has finally found her place and it’s that of a stateswoman. She has come into her own and is rising to stratospheric heights on the international front.
In Malta, we note all this but, unless it’s happening right in our very belly button, under the flag of a maduma or a torċa, it’s not riveting. Column inches have been dedicated, instead, to the very insular news that she should be pressured to be the future PN leader. To which I say, for goodness’s sake, stop it.
The idea is evidently being pushed by the usual suspects, among them, Pierre Portelli (who, up to a couple of years ago, was in cahoots with Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech and the Labour media to slam anti-corruption activists) and Saviour Balzan (the long-time government PR consultant forever posing as a journalist). They’ve been yapping about how Bernard Grech must only stay on as an ‘interim leader’ and how Metsola must come back to Malta when her presidential term comes to an end in two years’ time to take over the PN.
Metsola should be nowhere else except where she excels, in Brussels, where, with her role, she is salvaging a bit of our country’s unsavoury reputation- Kristina Chetcuti
It is no secret that I believe that the world would be a better place if more women were in power. And it’s no secret either that, two years ago, I yearned for the PN to shatter the glass ceiling and choose a woman leader. At the time, both Therese Comodini Cachia and Metsola were in the running but were pipped by Grech. However, that ship has sailed now. Comodini Cachia still crusades relentlessly for justice but, sadly for the country, has left politics. And Metsola should be nowhere else except where she excels, in Brussels, where, with her role, she is salvaging a bit of our country’s unsavoury reputation (remember in the EU corridors we are nothing but a corrupt nation of golden passports, greylisting and mafia politicians).
This ‘interim leader’ business is utter hogwash. It’s beyond ridiculous and extremely offensive and insulting to Grech, if anything. It’s an idea pushed by people with their own agenda; an idea that would simply benefit the ruling Labour government. There is no space for an interim political leader and a ‘temporary’ opposition team, especially in a democracy in such a precarious state as ours.
So, please let’s kill it here and now. Leave Metsola be.
Russian ambassador, pack your bags
A war photograph of an innocent Ukrainian civilian, shot dead as he was cycling and carrying provisions – red potatoes – in a plastic bag, has been tormenting me all week. There is something so cruelly, heart-wrenching about the details of the image. Was he glad he had managed to get hold of some food? Did he know the risk he was running?
The aftermath of the Russian retreat from Bucha and other cities near Kyiv, where dozens of bodies were found in mass graves and in the streets, has made it amply clear that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is premeditated and cold-bloodied. He is a war criminal whose aim is to fulfil his fantasy of a new USSR and, for him, annihilating a nation and torturing its people is just a minor hurdle.
In protest at these war crimes and atrocities recorded and documented by international human rights watchdogs, Lithuania became the first EU country to announce the expulsion of its Russian ambassador. Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden followed suit and over 400 staff at their Russian embassies have been kicked out.
What about the Russian embassy in Malta? Is everything above board here? It is sickening how Ambassador Andrei Lupokhov, Putin’s representative in Malta, and his team have been doing nothing but tweeting atrocious fake news, claiming that Ukraine is “staging” it all and defending the indefensible. This makes them complicit in war crimes.
Comrade Evarist Bartolo has now moved aside for Ian Borg as the new foreign minister. Borg enjoys and prides himself in bulldozing over any hitches. Let’s see if he is as intolerant with war criminals as he was with trees and fields. Borg, when are you asking Mr Lupokhov to pack his bags?