It’s been a great week’s work for Robert Abela, a poke in the eye of all those critics who still carp about his long boating holiday in the middle of a pandemic.
Our prime minister is a multifaceted man. He is a true socialist – and indifferent to workers. He has a cunning plan for good governance – and unexplained personal wealth. Who says you can’t have everything?
He is a complex man. He has a sophisticated variety of feeling. He has radiant warmth for the daughter he’s always pushing into the limelight. He has chilling disregard for Jean Paul Sofia’s parents, who insist on the limelight for their only son, lying in darkness, in the hope that the truth will shine on his scandalous death and spare other parents their grief.
Let the dead bury the dead; you can’t keep a good man down. Our prime minister managed to enjoy a big party at the Girgenti palace and to slip out for a weekend on his boat. But what exemplary productivity on either side of playtime!
Before our Robert left to party, he stood up in parliament to argue against a public inquiry into whether Sofia was a victim of state maladministration. That might ruin the judicial inquiry, he argued, even as he sought to ruin the reputation of the magistrate conducting it.
In the name of loyalty, he whipped his Labour colleagues into voting against a public inquiry, even though some had misgivings. With one swoop, our Robert destroyed their reputations and cut them down to size, in case they entertain thoughts above their station.
A day later, for good measure, the prime minister destroyed the illusion anyone might have had about the independence of the attorney general’s office. He promised to release the magisterial inquiry findings, even though only the attorney general can decide that.
Then came that deserved holiday and, on Monday, the return to action.
Some ministers were nervous and uppity. They were thrown under a bus. Our Robert declared no one forced them to vote against a public inquiry. If they’re saying they knew their vote was wrong, then they’re the ones at fault.
Faced with the prospect of huge masses gathering in Castille Square, Robert declared he was, after all, unilaterally ordering a public inquiry. So what if parliament, under his instructions, had decided the opposite a few days earlier?
Our Robert is strong. It’s a strong leader’s prerogative to change his mind and have every independent institution fall in line as though nothing happened.
Critics might call this a U-turn. Robert explained he changed his mind because he had been right all along. Technically, he said, he was correct in thinking that a public inquiry could imperil a criminal investigation.
Our prime minister delicately left it up to us to conclude that the three judges who had conducted the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry must have insanely risked jeopardising the murder investigation when they agreed to run the public inquiry concurrently.
However, although the prime minister was right as usual, the world had changed in three days. If you didn’t notice, remember that our Robert sees things no ordinary eye can see.
You can bank on Robert to shake the establishment. No one has done so much shaking, in so little time, since the days of Samson. Frankly, our body-building premier outmuscles Samson himself- Ranier Fsadni
To the naive, the judiciary and government are independent of each other. Each has its dominion and tempo. But our Robert sniffed out a hidden plot, according to which the judiciary was trying to hold government hostage by delaying the conclusion of the magisterial inquiry.
It was a nefarious plot, with a wide web of plotters, if the unconfirmed news is true that the investigating magistrate, her inquiry actually completed, asked for a short delay only at the request of the attorney general.
Thank God for Robert. In a single day, he dispatched his colleagues’ miserable attempt to redeem themselves, he showed how sitting and retired judges can’t be trusted to ensure the success of magisterial inquiries and he scotched a judicial plot against democracy.
You can bank on Robert to shake the establishment. No one has done so much shaking, in so little time, since the days of Samson. Frankly, our body-building premier outmuscles Samson himself. Samson wrecked but a single temple; Robert inflicted his damage on judiciary, parliament and Labour Party: more than twice the damage with less than half the hair.
He gets so little credit. Within Labour, he’s compared unfavourably with his predecessor, Joseph Muscat. Can’t anyone see that Robert matches Joseph blow for blow and then exceeds him?
It took Joseph three-and-a-half years to meet his Panamagate; another 18 months for an assassination to take place for which the State bore political responsibility; and yet another two years for the angry masses to gather outside Castille.
Robert has telescoped all that – scandal, shocking death, angry crowds – into a mere three-and-a-half years.
Joseph’s minions, online armies and supporters were praised for their savvy. After Caruana Galizia’s assassination, it was put about that she may have done it herself, to spite Labour, and that her family were exploiting her death to damage Malta and turn a quick buck.
But did not Robert’s legions rise to the occasion? They told Sofia’s grieving mother that, had she been a good mother, he’d have been studying, not on the construction site. Besides, she was exploiting her son’s death to damage the Labour government and to earn a bit on the side.
Then she told them that her son entered the workforce out of choice and that he was a passionate Labour supporter. To which they replied that, in demanding justice, she was standing in the way of true justice.
How does our Robert fall short? He excels and exceeds. Muscat targeted adversaries. Robert’s displeasure is like a god’s, raining on red and blue alike.
We all know there’s one law for the gods, another for animals. But we forget the details. Among the Greek gods, Cronus was leader of the Titans and devoured his own children to protect his position. The one surviving child, Zeus, eventually deposed him.