On December 19, the Slovakian Republic began the process of healing itself after the cold-blooded double murder of Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend in 2018. The court case against the murderers and the mastermind who ordered it, as well as the ministers involved, has begun.

It is clear that the court case and the sentencing that may result will not provide closure, nor will it bring to an end the suffering of the Slovakian population. Even though two ministers, the prime minister, police heads and others in the chain of command have already resigned or lost their jobs, the damage to the rule of law and to the newly won democracy in Slovakia, after over 70 years of dictatorial Communist rule, is too great and too deep.

The infiltration of the local and international mafia via the open economy that came about as a result of Slovakia joining the EU in 2004 resulted in a widespread culture of illegality in all sectors, damaging the social and moral fabric.

To get back to the dream of democracy after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Slovakians are asking for a root and branch overhaul of their system: full independence of the judiciary, police and army, and elimination of the politicians with links to the former regime or the immoral business communities. This must be followed by a period of transparent investigations into all contracts, business links, tax returns, and the naming, shaming and punishment of wrongdoers.

It is only then, after a number of years, that Slovak society can rid itself of the causes that led to the murders in the first place. Only then can reconciliation begin – and that will take years.

Does this sound familiar? It could almost be Malta today. Except that the Slovakians are far ahead of Malta in their roadmap to democracy and rule of law.

In Malta, many seem to think that once Joseph Muscat has been forced to resign, we have begun to heal ourselves.

Muscat was no Icarus who flew too close to the sun. He was one of the planners of the Mafia-like economic activity upon which he built his following. He only fell from grace because heroes like Daphne Caruana Galizia and Simon Busuttil forced the truth to emerge.

Malta’s extraordinary economic growth is based on criminal and fraudulent economic activities attracted to Malta on promises of lax controls and dependant on a cobweb of relationships between politicians and greedy businessmen. The population naively and unwittingly cooperated, enjoying the economic success but knowing that the entire system is based on cheating.

The system attracted immoral gambling, European passport selling, money-laundering banks, cannabis growing, cryptocurrencies, tax avoidance, fraudulent public sales of national assets, ODZ permits, secret jobs for the boys and many other illicit acts that cannot be allowed to carry on. Otherwise we can only expect more of the same and another murder in the future.

As many of us remember, whenever we sinned and went to confession, we came home redeemed and cleansed for the price of a paltry three Hail Marys. This will not do any longer. The sins are too many, the cancer too widespread.

The new prime minister should set up a temporary emergency government of national unity

Sorry Archbishop. Sorry Mr President. Sorry Mr Developers’ Association. Sorry Mr Chamber of Commerce. Sorry Mr Gaming Industry. Sorry Mr Central Bank… sorry to all those who call for forgetting the past, unifying the people and getting the economic ship back on course. If you really want us to put all that has happened behind us and unite as a people to carry on with our lives as though the past six years were a bout of influenza, then you must either be part of the problem or living on the moon.

I am hoping against hope that the new leader of the Labour Party – in spite of the blood stains that he himself bears having been a cabinet member and a member of the parliamentary majority that voted unanimously for all that Muscat and the gang of crooks asked them to endorse – will be able to bring about the deep and long-term changes that Malta requires.

The new leader knows that the cancer did not start with Joseph Muscat. Muscat and his cronies only perfected the act with premeditated zeal – the ground had been set for them by the previous government. It was the Nationalists, after Mintoff’s flirting with communism and the violence and criminal economic activities of the 1970s and 1980s, who introduced the fiscal system that attracted tax evaders. It was the PN that introduced the gambling industry to Malta and who sold assets like the banks, privatised the bus service, and widened the definition of ODZ.

For these reasons the new leader would be well advised not to go for a simple clean-up while retaining many of the existing cabinet members. He should wield the scalpel with determination and cut deeply. He should not look to excise only the main tumour at the core of the government – the PM’s office and cabinet – but he should excise the metastases spreading throughout the body of our dear and quasi terminally sick Malta.

All positions of trust should be reviewed and all permanent secretaries and heads of the army, police, the AG’s office and other authorities must offer their resignations.

There is another fundamental thing he must do if he wants Malta to follow Slovakia back to democracy, transparency, accountability and meritocracy based on the rule of law: he should not undertake this Herculean task alone.

I suggest that for the remaining two and a half years of Labour’s mandate, the new prime minister should set up a temporary national emergency government in which 40 per cent of the cabinet posts are Labour, 30 per cent are Nationalist and 30 per cent shared by AD, PD and civil society.

Under this government of national unity, every nomination to ministerial or head of government service position would require a 75 per cent cabinet majority approval.

All parliamentary activity during these 30 months would be directed towards the clean-up of the past, the punishment of the guilty and amendments to the Constitution to ensure that the moral degradation of our society over the past 20 years will never happen again.

With these new nationally accepted people in place, the new prime minister would run his government as normal with simple majorities for the day-to-day activities. Since all suggestions to parliament for the reorganisation of government policies would come from the cabinet, Malta and the EU would be assured that the island has embarked on a programme of economic reorientation and re-establishment of democracy and rule of law.

Eliminating the Mafia, the people-smuggling and low-wage slavery will not be easy. I dare not imagine the number of those who have offshore companies in Panama, Guernsey or the British Virgin Islands.

How many businessmen sell their pro­ducts or services to themselves in a company registered abroad at a low price and then sell them onwards to the final customer for the proper market price, retaining the difference as a profit by their foreign company registered in a zero per cent tax regime?

How many flat owners do not declare their earnings in rent?

How many property owners rent to foreigners who do not reside in Malta for the required period but run their water and electricity to produce a bill anyway?

The list can go on and on, and I haven’t even mentioned the foreigners running mafia-like coffee shops and pizzerias, the online gambling directed at other countries, the criminals allowed to open banks…

Three Hail Marys will not absolve any of them.

The scalpel will hopefully cut deep enough. But I am not convinced. The new leader’s cosiness with the Labour Party and fear of it will probably inhibit him from operating a cure. He will be pressed to attack the symptoms but to leave the disease untouched. He will be forbidden to work with the Opposition and civil society. He will likely leave the patient moribund.

However, if he takes the gamble and spends 30 months in the company of the Opposition and civil society cleaning up Malta, he will have a much bigger chance of winning the next election. And he can rely on my support.

John Vassallo is a former ambassador of Malta to the European Union.

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