A decade is a long time, in politics if not in life. As Joseph Muscat rushed to power in 2013, people who felt their opinions and their abilities had been underestimated by PN ministers were excited by the heady prospect of a government who would bring everyone on board in a national synergy that rose above tribalism.
Malta belongs to “all of us” was Labour’s chief mantra. Malta tagħna lkoll. The slogan was exciting: an indignant reclamation of a stolen inheritance. For too long an established elite had behaved as if Malta were their property and the rest of the people were mere tenants. Under Muscat, the promise was: it wouldn’t matter if you belonged to the elite. If you were smart enough, you could become anything.
Some token former Nationalists were given sinecures to give credence to the claim. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, Karl Stagno Navarra, Robert Musumeci, John Bonello, John Dalli: everyone “can work with us” Muscat proclaimed.
Of course, the gulf between the promise and reality soon became evident. The token Nationalists appointed to public office ironically incarnated the eligibility criteria for leading government positions: blind loyalty, vociferous complicity and an unqualified willingness to take the side of Muscat in any battle between truth and facts on the one hand and Muscat on the other.
Over 10 years, every position of any responsibility in the administration was stuffed with loyalists. Nearly all permanent secretaries in office in the beginning of 2013 were out of it by the end of it. Public sector directorships were gifted to an army of people without a day of experience or any hint of training in the areas they were made responsible for.
Top jobs were given to people just out of school. Some were given to people still in school. Their only understanding of what it takes to run a country came from their time dissing the Nationalists as One TV cub reporters.
On the eve of the 2013 election, Labour promised Malta would be constituted as a meritocracy, where the more able would be enabled to do more. Instead, we got a kakistocracy, a government by the least qualified, whose only apparent aptitude is a remarkable lack of scruples.
Throughout those 10 years they campaigned as if they were an opposition. Whatever went wrong was, as they put it, a consequence of the disaster the Nationalists left when they were thrown out in 2013. Whenever Labour ministers were criticised, they responded by accusing their critics of remorse for having been thrown off the gravy train by the great liberator, Muscat.
Miriam Dalli this week campaigned for her political survival as if she were still a One TV anchor criticising Tonio Fenech circa 2011. The power cuts? It’s the Nationalists’ fault. The solution? Denim, boots and a good camera angle as she squats in trenches.
Jonathan Attard runs the justice ministry like he ran his weekly TV shows dissing the PN in the 2010s. If he could switch from anti-EU to pro-EU at the snap of Muscat’s fingers, why is it difficult to switch from the anti-Sofia inquiry to pro-Sofia inquiry at the snap of Robert Abela’s?
Top jobs were given to people just out of school. Some were given to people still in school- Manuel Delia
Indeed, the skills of being a One TV reporter proved essential to live through the Muscat and Abela years. Only that refined ability to be selectively blind to the facts could allow them to ignore Konrad Mizzi’s and Keith Schembri’s Panama companies and Muscat’s slavish servility to Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.
Alongside “the best of times is ahead of us” (“l-aqwa żmien għadu ġej”), the motto of “Malta tagħna lkoll” is pregnant with mother-killing irony. Malta was captured as a personal fiefdom of Muscat and carved out among his barons given free rein to cover it in concrete, ash and shadow, a poisoning of green pastures worthy of Mordor.
If merit alone was never a guarantee of influence in this country, it had now become irrelevant. Loyalty and sycophancy earned you the right to feel included. Only complicity entitled you to a piece of the action.
These cronies, utterly bereft of talent, who smiled inanely at the men-only late-night dinner parties with Schembri or at Muscat’s over- the-top birthday parties in Girgenti, ran the branches of government.
They had the job of planning for our electricity needs, of keeping hospitals working, to make sure the food supply does not break down, to ensure a constant flow of water and milk, of ensuring the country has the infrastructure to allow businesses to thrive and the superstructure to shelter the weak, the sick and the poor. For anyone looking close enough, their failure was easily anticipated. Those lacking in foresight were stunned by the catastrophic collapse of the last weeks.
Abela blamed it all on climate change. That’s like the builder of a straw house blaming the wind for ending up homeless. Or to use a maritime metaphor the notorious pleasure yachtsman would understand, it’s like a drunk captain who ran the ship aground blaming the reef he ignored until they hit it.
The electoral success of the Labour Party over the last several years has given too many the impression that mediocrity, incompetence and a peppering of callous greed are characteristics devoutly to be wished for in your government.
When Muscat is your gold standard and Mizzi is your star candidate and Abela is your beloved heir, you should know there’s nobody left in the crow’s nest looking out for the reef rapidly climbing up to our hull.
Where will we find the competence that might lead us out of this?