This morning Malta wakes up to a new leader of the Labour Party, who will also be the country’s prime minister. Change lies ahead. No leader is a carbon copy of another.
Today we can also say goodbye to Joseph Muscat’s leadership. He has been at the helm for close to seven years and he has left his mark.
Last October, Muscat had said that the 2020 Budget would not be his last as prime minister. He evidently did not anticipate being out of office by today, only three months later. Events suddenly moved faster than expected.
At the end of November, Muscat’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, resigned. Minister Konrad Mizzi also resigned.
President George Vella then broadcast a message to the nation, appealing for calm. He said that Malta deserves better. He expressed his concern at the gravity of the situation.
The festive season was steeped in political fatigue and disillusionment. Regular protests were held in the streets of Valletta, with large crowds seething in anger and resentment. Shops reported slow business.
The MCESD social partners stated that the current situation was damaging Malta’s reputation and economy. The Chamber of Commerce cancelled its annual Christmas reception. Even the Malta National Book Awards were postponed.
For two entire months, the news has been dominated by investigations and court cases related to murder and corruption, linked to the heart of government.
Muscat’s position was no longer tenable. His resignation was inevitable.
The international community passed its verdict too. On December 18, MEPs from all political groupings in the European Parliament overwhelmingly approved a resolution criticising Muscat’s failure to step down immediately. Malta’s reputation is in tatters.
Since Muscat’s televised announcement on December 1, stating that he would leave in January, he has spent the last six weeks trying to shape the narrative of his resignation.
He first gave an emotional final parliamentary speech as prime minister. After tours around various towns and villages, his long goodbye culminated on Friday evening with a strong farewell speech to a large crowd of PL supporters. He admitted that he had made some mistakes, while mainly singing his own praises to the crowd.
Muscat encouraged his supporters to write the history of his premiership, instead of others doing so. But he has no control over what people will write. He could publish his autobiography, giving his version. But that will not stop others from analysing and writing their own interpretation of Muscat’s administration.
Now that Muscat is out the tables will start to turn. He will not get off the hook that smoothly
It is understandable that his supporters, listening to his speech on Friday, were moved and emotional. Many were in tears. Muscat has charisma, and he is a skilled and powerful speaker.
In his final parliamentary speech he had said that he will not contest another election. On Friday, however, he announced that he will continue as an MP for the time being. He said he will now use his role to focus on civil liberties, one of the progressive areas of his premiership. Presumably, after some thought, he decided that this could help him shape a ‘positive’ political legacy. He also chose sports as a second favourite area, which could boost his popularity.
But it is not that easy for the rest of us to forget how and why he resigned. He is exiting under a dark cloud. One scandal that has been festering since 2016 is his refusal to fire Schembri and Mizzi after the revelations of the Panama Papers.
Muscat has not provided a direct explanation for his resignation. But it emerged clearly enough in his farewell speech, that the investigation into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia was the tipping point.
The trail has led investigators to the threshold of Muscat’s own office door. That is also a defining part of his political legacy, which is unlikely to be forgotten.
Muscat was a constant target of Caruana Galizia’s writing. On Friday he repeated that he has paid the highest political price to ensure that her murder is solved. But he is still standing, while she lost her life for her work.
Now that Muscat is out, the tables will start to turn. He will not get off the hook that smoothly. He still has many, big and serious questions to answer about the events that took place on his watch.
The country has been grinding down over the last two months. The entrance of a new leader will now hopefully enable people to start picking up the pieces and take stock.
Steamrolling ahead
Amid this political confusion, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg is ploughing on with his road-building like there is no tomorrow.
Despite an ongoing appeal process, the ministry is pressing on with its Central Link project regardless. This controversial project will widen the road from Attard to Mdina. Agricultural land along the way is already being excavated at a fast pace.
Environmental activists from the group Extinction Rebellion are again hanging protest messages on the existing trees along this road. But those trees may not be there for long.
Borg is also steamrolling ahead with the road tunnel link between Malta and Gozo. The process leading to a concession for the design, build, finance and operation of this tunnel has just been launched. The idea is for the project to be financially viable through a tolling system that will enable the chosen operator to recoup the huge investment.
As expected, the tunnel’s entrance and exit points will be at l-Imbordin in Malta and Nadur in Gozo. This will mean yet more road-widening and increased traffic in these areas. The tunnel is estimated to cater for around 9,000 vehicles per day.
The government has shrugged off the idea of introducing an underground metro from Malta to Gozo through a tunnel, claiming that it is not viable. The 13-kilometre tunnel will only cater for cars and other vehicles. Pedestrians and bicycles will have to cross over to Gozo by other means.
Muscat’s political legacy has yet to be fully assessed, but on the environmental front it will surely score badly. It is true that electricity generation is now cleaner, through using gas and the interconnector. Yet the other big source of air pollution is traffic congestion, and the building of roads and tunnels will not solve that problem. The number of cars on the road increases each day, and no effective, realistic solutions for alternative transport are in the pipeline.
Cars pollute the air very close to people, with harmful emissions hovering in the narrow streets and pavements that we walk on. Unless car use is curbed, widening roads is only a short-term solution to improve traffic flow. If the quantity of cars continues to increase, soon enough the widened roads will also be jammed.