The second of two cabinet ministers to testify at the inquiry into the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia spilled his guts in a gory act of public remorse and self-flagellation.
Edward Scicluna admitted that though he’s been finance minister for over seven years, he’s never really governed the country. He wasn’t taking material decisions. His advice was ignored. He was as unsuccessful in obtaining information from other government departments as your average hack working away in vain at the Times of Malta.
The only reason he did not resign his job was that he had given up a much better paid job in Brussels to enter Maltese politics. Since he wasn’t doing anything, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. If he couldn’t have the power that came with the title of finance minister, he would enjoy the prestige of it.
Though after his public confession last week, there isn’t much left of that either.
Like Evarist Bartolo before him, Scicluna said that in spite of the oath he was made to take, the car and driver he was given, the staff of jaded mandarins shuffling papers at his ministry, and the cameras of public scrutiny fixed upon him, the real decision maker was Keith Schembri.
Like Bartolo before him, Scicluna said that Schembri called all the shots, took decisions without accountability, spent public money without restraint, engaged the government in contracts without due process and fixed deals on the nation’s behalf with people that Scicluna can’t be sure are not Schembri himself.
Like Bartolo before him, Scicluna said that he spent the better part of seven years telling Joseph Muscat he should fire Schembri but Muscat ignored him. It seemed then that Muscat worked for Schembri. As well as Konrad Mizzi, the minister of choice whenever Schembri needed a minister’s signature for his corrupt hook-ups.
Now Bartolo and Scicluna are but two of many of Muscat’s and Robert Abela’s ministers. They’re only the most senior ministers in office since the day Muscat was first sworn in as prime minister. They’re also the only two to have testified so far.
But if any other minister who served while Schembri held court in Castille has a different interpretation of the events and the power dynamics of those days, they haven’t said a word yet.
In the world of instant reactions on social media, of trial by public opinion, of partisan TV spin, political actors from the present administration and the one immediately preceding it are remarkably silent in the face of these outrageous public confessions.
The silence is probably intended to avoid feeding this smouldering auto-da-fé. But the silence also has the effect of confirming it. Eyewitness accounts by Bartolo and Scicluna confirm that we have not been governed by whom we thought we did. All those screams of “Joseph! Joseph!” were badly addressed. Decisions were not taken by the voters who showed up. The notorious 40,000 were not backing who they thought they were.
This then is the entirety of our governing class: criminal masterminds and mindless henchmen- Manuel Delia
It’s all been a lie.
And now the truth we understand is that the Labour Party’s administration was divided into two unequal parts. A handful worked for Schembri, recruits of a state-within-a-state crime syndicate. They saw their job as a private interest intent at maximising personal returns. Their criminal activity funded an expensive lifestyle which is meant to outlast their brief time in office.
They needed just enough time to steal enough money to not have to work anymore after leaving power. There would be enough to meet their expectations from life: insta photos of expensive trips aboard luxury yachts, tossing around eye-wateringly expensive designer wear and quivering in delight at the speculation of others about where all the money comes from.
And then the rest of the administration: a bunch of spineless accomplices, too cowardly, too morally compromised, too keen on the puerile prestige of public office to do anything about the criminals within their ranks.
Scicluna and Bartolo allowed themselves to be hired by the criminals to cover for the criminals. Consider how Bartolo campaigned alongside Muscat right up to the day of Muscat’s resignation. Consider how Scicluna accused his financial intelligence agents of writing reports with the intention of leaking them and allowed the investigators to lose their jobs and suffer for their integrity.
This then is the entirety of our governing class: criminal masterminds and mindless henchmen. These are the established, the comfortably numb, the people who do not need a clean conscience and a selfless instinct for public service to mitigate their sacrifice.
They have instead the guarantee of a perpetual electoral majority that will continue to cover for this state-within-a-state for the pure pleasure of having the Labour Party in government.
The fact is, this makes criminals or cowards of us all. There are many barriers for a democratic overthrow of this government: a tight control on broadcast media, a hostile takeover of institutions, the choking of free journalism, corrupt practices in buying votes with public money, and so on. But at the moment of casting our vote we are all free women and men and yet we vote them back in power.
In 2013, we voted Labour in power because we were curious what a change would feel like. In 2017, we voted Labour in power because we could afford to ignore the hidden Mafiosi and focus instead on the money we were making.
What’s our excuse for supporting Labour now? The fact that there is no alternative we can trust to be any better than the hapless, pointless, rambling Scicluna.
That’s what Bernard Grech needs to be: an alternative to the restricted menu that our political class provides us with today.
First, he must defeat the PN leader who thinks the establishment is the part of the Nationalist Party he wants to destroy. That mission accomplished, if he’s not a criminal and he’s not a coward, he becomes a choice.
He becomes a challenge to the truly established.