The reshuffle announced by Prime Minister Robert Abela on Saturday has resulted in a cabinet that, much like a potpourri, contains dry leaves – dead wood would, perhaps, be a better word – but also elements that, like spices, can add flavour to the team.
Two members of the old set-up lost their job. Edward Scicluna was moved sideways, ‘relinquishing’ his post of finance minister to become Central Bank governor, and Silvio Parnis, the former parliamentary secretary for active ageing and persons with disability, was unceremoniously kicked out.
Parnis must have been fired because of his abysmal performance in handling the situation prevailing in old people’s homes due to the pandemic, even if he should not be the only one to carry the can.
What probably necessitated the reshuffle must have been the co-option in parliament of Miriam Dalli and Clyde Caruana.
One may be justified in concluding that Abela could not just drop Scicluna without offering something in return and neither was he likely to just accept to go and leave it at that.
Parnis, on the other hand, seems to have been expendable. This is clearly a case of Abela being strong with the weak and weak with the strong.
It is evident he tried to appease everybody else. The cabinet is ridiculously large for the country’s size.
A country of less than half a million people should not have the third largest cabinet in the EU. Some of the portfolio titles are not very clear about their ultimate target. One thing is certain: it’s one very expensive cabinet.
In the prevailing circumstances, it would have been wiser to keep government expenditure on the cabinet in check, also because nobody knows how long the pandemic will last.
Another downside is that the size of the cabinet further weakens parliament as a watchdog since most Labour MPs now form part of the executive they are meant to hold to account.
Thankfully, the prime minister has retained in the same portoflios those who are evidently competent and good performers, among them Chris Fearne, Aaron Farrugia and Evarist Bartolo who appear to be making a genuine effort to ensure good governance and restore Malta’s reputation.
On the other hand, this was a missed opportunity to clear the stables of elements with shadows hanging over them, including those who exchanged potentially compromising messages with Yorgen Fenech, the businessman linked with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
It sends the wrong message to cabinet colleagues who strive to remain in line, to the public and to the foreign institutions watching the government’s every move.
Having a cabinet that is the most youthful, and embracing the most females and Gozitans ever, as Abela bragged on Sunday, may serve the purpose in winning votes at the next general election.
However, it will not necessarily ensure the administration has the input it really requires at this delicate point in time.
Since the constitution does not allow the hiring of technocrats to sit in cabinet, the future of the country depends completely on the competence, foresight and righteousness of the elected politicians the prime minister names as ministers and those they, in turn, choose to advise them.
And when he speaks of a cabinet that is one of substance, the prime minister ought to bear in mind that, in politics, true substance, as opposed to mere wealth and power, is a virtue and competence not a self-printed label.