As from today, January 1, we must resolve to do better. Malta must get to work to resist the systemic degradation of our fundamental right to information. In the words of Nobel Prize Winner Maria Ressa, without facts there is no truth, without truth there is no trust and without trust there is no democracy.
Robert Abela is on a crusade to conceal the facts from the people. He’s been using our own taxes to fund a war on journalists who dare ask questions. A whole army of lawyers paid through public funds is currently engaged in stopping us from finding out what Abela and his government are up to.
Forty different lawsuits have been filed to resist rulings made by the information commissioner ordering government entities and ministries to release information about how much money Abela’s government is paying Saviour Balzan to fight Labour’s corner. We know Balzan’s been paid over a million euros for his services. How much more, we don’t know.
Abela is the same man who promised he would implement the recommendations of the Caruana Galizia report. Instead, he’s embarked on a mission to suppress the free press and extinguish the public’s right to information.
Malta hasn’t yet figured out the challenges created by a leader with a fatal attraction for authoritarianism. Although the writing was on the wall from the start, the Maltese public has been lulled into apathy.
Before he became leader, Abela insisted he wanted to keep his distance from journalists in order to take the “decisions he needed to take”. He didn’t bother to invite them to the launch of his leadership campaign. For years, he refused to grant an interview to the independent media.
His autocratic streak can no longer be ignored. He is now brazenly and ruthlessly pursuing journalists for asking basic questions. He is determined to cripple truly independent media houses filing Freedom of Information requests with multiple financially ruinous lawsuits.
He flagrantly defies the known truth, claiming he consulted widely about the media law when everybody knew he hadn’t. He pays lip service to European efforts to introduce anti-SLAPP measures while pursuing a scorched-earth policy to punish media organisations that dare ask questions.
The principal error of the opposition is that they assume that Abela wants what they want for the country. That habit of mind leaves them vulnerable. Abela has shown he is willing to take risks others would never stomach. Despite knowing of the wide opposition to his abortion amendment, he ploughed on, completely ignoring the genuine pleas of even those within his own party.
Robert Abela didn’t hesitate to denigrate and vilify one of Labour’s own icons, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, for daring to contradict him- Kevin Cassar
He didn’t hesitate to denigrate and vilify one of Labour’s own icons, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, for daring to contradict him. He unscrupulously dug up her views on divorce from a decade earlier to discredit her. Abela embraces the politics of autocracy, seeking to destroy even those on his side who dare voice an opinion not in line with his.
His open attack on the European Parliament and, particularly, the cynical targeting of the parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola for swiftly removing Vice-President Eva Kaili puts him firmly in the camp of autocrats. His hostility towards the European Parliament matches that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Orbán uploaded a mocking tweet attempting to ridicule the European Parliament. Abela and Orbán’s approaches are perfectly aligned.
In September, the European Parliament declared Hungary a “non-democracy”. The European Commission proposed suspending the allocation of €7.5 billion to Hungary until Orbán implements measures to strengthen Hungary’s democracy. But, just three months later, the EU approved a €5.8 billion recovery plan for Hungary.
The European Commission could cripple Hungary’s authoritarian regime by withholding funds to force it to change its autocratic style. But political expediency trumped democratic concerns. The commission is more interested in keeping the Hungarian economy afloat and avoid a default than in preserving Hungary’s democracy and protecting the rights of its people. The same applies to Malta.
The EU could withhold funds to force Abela to embrace democratic principles, implement the recommendations of the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry and to stop harassing journalists trying to do their job. Instead, the EU tenders Abela an external lifeline in the shape of EU funds to continue to extinguish our democracy.
The hundreds of millions of euros in funds Abela is handed over are used to bolster his own power. He uses them to target journalists with vexatious lawsuits. He uses them to finance Labour’s loyalists through rampant trampling of public procurement regulations, as the recent NAO report shows. Millions of euros are dished out in direct orders and contracts.
Abela is buying support, silence and loyalty with EU funds. Those companies chosen to be lavished with million-euro contracts cannot resist Labour’s subsequent demands for donations without jeopardising their own revenue stream from Abela’s direct orders.
The illusion that the EU would protect our democracy has been rudely shattered. The EU won’t protect us. Only we can protect our democracy.
And there is nothing abstract about democracy. Democracy is built on the right to information which Abela aggressively denies us. He doesn’t want anybody to know what he’s doing. He doesn’t want you to know where and how your money is being spent.
The cost of his bad governance, illegal direct contracts, unwarranted positions of trust, is borne by the nation. The poor value for money, the sheer waste of public funds, the diversion of taxes into the pockets of Abela’s friends and allies cannot be revealed.
Labour withholds funding for life-saving procedures even as it squanders millions in buying support, consolidating its power and concealing the truth.
We should be chilled to our bones to witness Abela’s efforts to stifle our right to know what he’s up to with our own money. But, instead of outrage, we see complacency all around. That must change. We owe it to our children, to our country and to ourselves.