We approach Saturday’s general election with a near consensus on two things. One is that Labour will win. The other is that, unless there’s a significant clean-up of Labour’s way of doing things, the next five years risk being very rocky for the country.
Let’s begin with the last point. Labour controls the flow of information in the country. But there are some events and processes it cannot control. Nor can it suppress their real effects from bursting the bubble of propaganda and spin.
It has controlled public broadcasting. It has denied freedom of information. People who have compromising information have, somehow, not been investigated or else have been bought off.
But Labour couldn’t control greylisting (at the behest of the US, among others). And it can’t control just how far the US intends to take its claims about the “significant corruption” concerning the Electrogas power station.
Labour cannot entirely control the various judicial inquiries and court cases concerning other corruption claims, not least the Vitals Global Healthcare deal. These cases will be grinding towards conclusions in the next legislature.
The public will be alive to see what they establish and what police actions they call for.
The next five years will see Malta trying to get off the FATF grey list in an international competitive environment where our financial services will have lost their edge. National income could be significantly affected.
We also do not know just to what extent the international playing field will change as a reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (given that Russian oligarchs have been major beneficiaries of the current financial system, in Malta and elsewhere).
Finally, Malta is supposed to achieve enough growth to finance tax cuts and rising public expenditures, while bringing down the ballooning national debt. We have to see if we can beat rampant inflation and grow our economy, while the economies of our major trading partners take a hit.
Just one of these events, gone wrong, would seriously damage a Labour government in two ways. It would raise legacy issues. And it would call into question the ‘business model’ of turbo-patronage practised by Robert Abela.
He says the Muscat legacy is a thing of the past. He, Abela, is undertaking the necessary gradual reforms.
But the legacy is plainly part of the present.
Take the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The public inquiry found the state, not least its communications arm, was indirectly responsible by fostering an environment that put a target on her back.
Testifying at the inquiry, the communication aides at the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), in Joseph Muscat’s time, showed no regret for their actions. They justified themselves. In other words, they’d do it again.
Where are they now? They are MPs seeking re-election or else on lucrative public contracts.
The idea that Abela will try to clean up what he’s tolerated for two years is fascinating. The idea that he can succeed, when half his current large cabinet is stained with scandal, is laughable- Ranier Fsadni
The inquiry proposed several changes to how journalists should be protected. Abela consulted no one, drafted some laws, left out significant changes and introduced loopholes. It’s only under the pressure of a looming election that some other reforms were introduced into Labour’s programme.
It’s part of a pattern. To date, Abela’s record is of reforming only under public pressure and, then, doing less than necessary.
Konrad Mizzi is part of the legacy. It’s only under public pressure that he was taken off a parliamentary delegation and then kicked out of the parliamentary group. But he wasn’t kicked out of Labour, which still treats him as one of its own, defending him against investigation in parliament.
Ditto for Rosianne Cutajar and her serial breaches of ethics. Her wings were clipped under the pressure of a Council of Europe process. Then, she was protected in parliament. Now she’s embraced as a candidate, even speaking at an Abela event.
That’s not a legacy. That’s seamless continuity with the past. How are we expected to believe that, after Saturday, there will be the necessary complete break?
There’s seamless continuity in the ‘business model’, too. Journalists still report being made to feel uneasy for doing their job. They’re still demonised when they pose uncomfortable questions. Abela has accused Herman Grech, editor-in-chief of this newspaper, of “conspiracy” because he met a Nationalist Party strategist (in the same week he also met cabinet ministers).
The continuity has been greatest in how party donors and insiders are rewarded with contracts and retainers, while protected against accountability.
The idea that Abela will try to clean up what he’s tolerated for two years is fascinating. The idea that he can succeed, when half his current large cabinet is stained with scandal, is laughable.
We’re expected to believe that Abela – as his pre-2020 past of wheeling and insider dealing catches up with him – can pressure his colleagues to do as he says, not as he did.
We’re even expected to believe that Labour in government can survive such a clean-up, without recriminations, without blackmail, without internal divisions and conflicts.
We’re supposed to forget the flashes of lightning we recently saw, when Muscat’s house and office were searched by the police.
We’re supposed to believe they were just a mirage.
The record of the past five years is clear. Without a clean-up, crisis cannot be averted. A proper clean-up will provoke a crisis. A limited clean-up will only be effected under the pressure of a semi-crisis, such as a significantly reduced majority.