“Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” 

– Louis Brandeis.

The dust has finally settled past both the European Parliament and Local Council elections. Following these election campaigns and everything else leading up to them, two themes seem to stick out in the recent description of Maltese politics this year: arrogance and the seeming disregard of standards.

After years of corruption allegations and simultaneous electoral thrashings, the incumbent Labour Party looks to have finally lost its supermajority in the Maltese islands – a shocking development, considering it won the general election just 27 months prior by nearly 40,000 votes. The 2022 general election displayed the greatest voter gap on the Electoral Commission’s record, and was a stark improvement from the Muscat administration’s consistent 35,000-vote gaps of 2013 and 2017.

The Labour Party losing the largest voter gap in the history of the Maltese islands in such a short span of time has made this year’s results all the more significant. 

Despite feeling untouchable in its tainted podium of incumbency, the Labour Party recently achieved an uncomfortable majority of 8,454 of the electorate’s votes in the MEP elections. For context, it has historically won all European Parliament elections by enormous majorities in the preceding EP elections of 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019, winning them all by an average of around 33,000 votes, despite the Nationalist Party being in power for the first half of them.

Meanwhile, the Local Council elections observed a 20,000-vote lead for the incumbent government – potentially highlighting Metsola as a gargantuan asset for PN through the 11,500-vote difference, however, it would be slightly irresponsible to compare EP and LC election like-for-like. Different ballot sheets and different contexts (one being national, the other locality-based) expectedly tend to lead to different results.

The loss of Labour’s supermajority led to them to inform the general public that they will be reading into the messages sent to them by the electorate as early as the EP elections’ counting day itself. The Prime Minister and many of the party’s notable officials had remarked that they shall be reading these messages “with great humility.” 

Humility is the first result Google churns out if you have to search for antonyms of the word “arrogance,” which seems fitting since one of the main gripes people have with this present administration is that it is leading with a sense of pride and arrogance. Moreover, people are also growing more frustrated as standards continue to diminish, one decision after another.

Should we believe PM Abela’s comments? Actions speak louder than words, and actions continue to foster frustration amongst the people. Moreover, Abela had promised for more humility and less arrogance after winning the 2022 general election, yet this negative sentiment against him and his government have only strengthened since.

This has been most recently apparent through the renewal of Police Commissioner Angelo Gafà for another four-year term (in spite of many calls for his resignation) and the nomination of Edward Zammit Lewis as a judge within the General Court of the European Union. Zammit Lewis’ nomination has been deplored for his previously exposed relationship with Yorgen Fenech as well as for the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry deeming him and other ministers “politically responsible” for the journalist’s assassination.

The country’s standards nosedived to new lows this year. There seems to be no desire by those in power to safeguard or uphold standards; this has been displayed by the continuous verbal attacks against the judiciary (spearheaded by the Prime Minister and his disgraced predecessor, no less), a series of construction accidents, including one death, concerning political returns (and some potential ones), a revealed case of voter fraud by the Court that involved social housing residents and inhabitable apartments, and more.

Seemingly every other day has generated at least one collective sigh and facepalm by the people to a simply embarrassing national news story. It’s no wonder that so many people were so uninterested in voting – why would anyone want to contribute to this mess?

First off, let’s reference the elephant in the room and address the mess that we are witnessing following the conclusion of the Vitals-Steward magisterial inquiry. I am usually very professional in my writing, however, I must raise a question given recent circumstances…what the f*** was Prime Minister Robert Abela on about?

The “culture of impunity” we have all heard of before still holds strong; a new political administration has not only failed in curbing this, but it has given evidence that this culture ran deeper than we initially thought – far more extended than the few castigated heads of the former Muscat administration.

For virtually every week that has passed since the start of this calendar year, there has been at least one instance that has been detrimental, or is indicative of, the general disregard for the upholding of standards across the Maltese islands. After listing and breaking down these instances, it is very easy to start feeling worrisome about the state of the already unhealthy national political arena.

With political integrity at such a low and political tensions so high this year, it is no wonder that some people have drawn comparisons between the contemporary political situation and the political turmoil that inflicted the Maltese islands in the 1980s.

The conclusion of the Vitals inquiry

It was reported that the Prime Minister said the word “establishment” 47 times in his speech on Monday, 6^th May 2024, averaging the word once per 60 seconds, and giving birth to a new local meme and political rhetoric: the establishment.

After our disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was criminally charged on 6^th May 2024 following the Vitals inquiry for his alleged involvement in the corrupt deal, he went to Facebook to call this judicial process a step beyond a “political vendetta” but also “a disgrace and abomination”. 

Abela – to the detriment of this country’s democratic principles – has defended Muscat in his verbal attacks against the concerned magistrate and has continued to point fingers towards the “establishment” that, according to him, has politicized this inquiry. This farcical narrative went on for weeks, despite countless criticisms.

But what on earth is this “establishment”?

According to our Prime Minister, the “establishment” comprises of the same people who removed and “humiliated” Adrian Delia as PN leader, i.e., the Nationalist Party (as also confirmed through a PL statement), somehow includes the Church’s media house Newsbook, and is, incredibly enough, giving questions to independent journalists to “destabilise the country” (as he had told a Lovin Malta journalist). 

As a journalist myself, I can personally vouch that these claims are asinine. Then again, in the Prime Minister’s mind, that’s exactly what the establishment would want me to say. 

Essentially, the country’s best example of a nepo baby claimed that the Nationalist Party is running the Maltese islands like they are the Illuminati, despite the fact that the governing Labour Party have been enjoying landslide electoral wins for the past decade – not even Muscat being named 2019’s OCCRP’s “Man of the Year in Organized Crime and Corruption” curbed this trend even a little bit.

Abela had actually made this allegation earlier in January 2024 – the previous time the two major parties put the Vitals-Steward case in national news. Abela had told journalists that PN is “trying to run the government as the Opposition in the minority” through the Courts.

This paradoxical narrative was shared despite the fact that PL have enjoyed several political thrashings over the last decade; since being elected by a 35,000 majority in 2013, they replicated this landslide victory in the 2017 general election, before confirming government once again in 2022 by a record-breaking 39,474 electorate majority.

With Labour’s government going 11 years strong now, the Labour Party’s government has, by definition, become the very definition of the establishment. 

The politicians who promoted this “establishment” narrative are either brainwashed or manipulating their voter base in a desperate attempt to divert negative attention away from the real issues that matter, i.e., the greatest fraud our country has been victim to, the gargantuan hospitals deal, in which our major government officials have chosen to defend the accused due to their shared political ties.

Aside from labelling the timing of the inquiry’s conclusion as “political terrorism” to throw off PL’s election campaign, Abela had also suggested that magistrates in magisterial inquiries should be limited in consulting and appointing foreign experts. The context behind the latter statement is that the Vitals inquiry cost €10 million, according to Justice Minister Jonathan Attard (the Labour Party’s newspaper it-Torċa published a report stating that it cost €11 million; PM Abela used this figure in his now infamous “Establishment” press conference).

The Maltese islands deserve better than a Prime Minister who relays his personal conspiracy theories as fact to attack journalists and the judiciary while protecting our most corrupt figures. 

In the late 2010s, PL was telling PN, “ħallu l-istituzzjonijiet jaħdmu” (let the institutions function as they are meant to). Now that this has happened, PL’s government – led by both our current and disgraced ex-Prime Minister – are vilifying the same institutions they told everyone to respect at the start of this same case. Incredibly shameless irony.

Construction failures and Bari Balla’s tragic demise

Bari Balla, a 51-year-old Albanian man, died on 20 April 2024 after the ceiling of a Sliema property collapsed onto him. He was found dead an hour after being engulfed by the rubble. It quickly emerged that the works occurring in this property were not permitted, with little to no clearance given by any of the relevant authorities…what assurance have been provided by the authorities since that this will never happen again? 

Bari Balla was a Żebbuġ resident and a father of six children; the youngest of which is just 12 years old. Unfortunately, because of his foreign nationality as a third-country national, many have already forgotten about his untimely death. Let’s not forget his name. Let’s try and be responsible enough to not let this man’s life be reduced to a statistic.

This tragedy sadly occurred less than two months after the damning report from the Sofia public inquiry was published for the country to see. This tragedy has shown us that we are yet to learn from the shortcomings that cost Jean Paul Sofia in December 2022, or at best, that we are being lethargic to implement the necessary changes that an outraged nation was only protesting about just a few months ago.

It took just two days short of a full calendar year since Abela’s infamous Sofia public inquiry U-turn for Parliament to approve the Health and Safety at Work Bill. This bill introduced a legal framework aimed at preventing workplace accidents.

At the end of February, the Sofia Public Inquiry report was published and featured countless lambasting criticisms against present procedures (or lack thereof). The damning report described the lack of construction regulation in this tragedy as “a classic comedy of errors”, called out the OHSA for living in an ivory tower, and found the State responsible for all the regulatory failures that resulted in this tragedy. 

All these months later, injuries, such as high falls, occurring at construction sites can still be read about on the news on a weekly basis.

Teasing shameless political returns

Something else that irked many locals over past months was the government’s incessant attempts to bring back disgraced politicians who were previously exiled due to political scandals. Joseph Muscat’s rumours to contest this June’s MEP elections were not the only political return that was considered by the Labour Party since the start of this year.

If you do not see an issue with this practice, one should realise that aside from tarnishing Malta’s reputation, allowing corrupt people to hold important positions is an open invitation for malpractice.

For instance, it was recently discovered that the main sponsor for the Malta Premier League, the Azerbaijani company 360Sports, does not yet exist, according to Times of Malta. Muscat, now the Chairman of Maltese football’s top tier, was credited for securing this deal, which he has described as “the largest ever sponsorship deal in Maltese sports.”

Just a week and a half into 2024, Malta’s Prime Minister Robert Abela made two shock announcements in a single day that echoed forgiveness on past political resignations. On 10 January 2024, former MFSA CEO Joseph Cuschieri was appointed as the new CEO of Project Green while Rosianne Cutajar was suddenly being reconsidered to make a return back into the Maltese Labour Party. 

Months later, Cutajar has been given the go-ahead to officially reintegrate back into Labour Party structures after being an independent MP since her public scandals (relating to Yorgen Fenech) broke out into national media…on the condition that she apologises.

A week after Cutajar’s initial public announcement, Abela then opened the door for former Minister Justyne Caruana to return to the party’s fold. In his own words, he stated numerous times that he believes the two women have paid the high political prices for their actions.

Justyne Caruana has already been made to resign twice in her political career – in January 2020, she resigned from her position as Minister for Gozo after reports exposed the relationship between Yorgen Fenech and her then-husband, former policy deputy commissioner, Silvio Valletta. Despite this, she was then sworn in as Minister for Education that same year, before resigning again just a year later after Standards Commissioner George Hyzler found that she had given her boyfriend, Daniel Bogdanović, a three-month contract worth €15,000, despite him having no qualifications to review the curriculum of the National Sports School, as he was tasked.

Both Cutajar and Cuschieri have notable relations with Yorgen Fenech – the alleged mastermind behind the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. If you know about these cases and do not require a refresher, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs.

Before being named as Steve Ellul’s successor as the new Chief Executive Officer of Project Green, Cuschieri notably resigned from his CEO position at the Malta Financial Services Authority in 2020 after breaching the MFSA’s and the European Central Bank’s code of ethics as a high-level official. Cuschieri had gone to Las Vegas with Yorgen Fenech in 2018 on an all-expenses paid trip by the businessman; back then, Fenech was a casino owner while Cuschieri had just taken up the CEO position at MFSA as the Executive Chairman of the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) at the time.

Meanwhile, Rosianne Cutajar was infamously moved out of the Government’s Cabinet in 2020 after news broke out that she had benefitted from an Mdina property deal with Fenech. Cutajar allegedly received €46,000 from the deal. Cutajar later resigned from the Labour Party’s parliamentary group after chats between her and the tycoon were leaked by Mark Camilleri in April 2023; she has since retained her position in Parliament as an independent MP.

While we can consider ourselves fortunate that Caruana, Cutajar, and Muscat have not (yet) reintegrated back into PL structures (as of now anyway), it is horrifying that their comebacks were ever even flirted with for more than a serious single second. Their contemplated returns (and Cuschieri’s return as Steve Ellul’s successor as Project Green CEO) are living evidence of the reigning culture of impunity and the lack of accountability in Maltese politics.

Final remarks

With such blatant levels of political unaccountability, it’s no wonder that political apathy is reigning so strongly amongst youths. In an article I wrote for The Malta Independent, former MKSA President Tasha Schembri stated that:

“Because people at the top are not held accountable for their actions, youth have been brought up in a country where we don’t really believe in change as a population because we feel like people aren’t held accountable.”

There seem to be infinite examples of this from just recent months. The proposed presidential pardon for the social benefits racket was a disputed subject earlier this year, though in my mind, the absence of political action following the Siġġiewi voter fraud in build-up to this June’s elections is a prime example of everything this government is often criticised over.

Despite this gerrymandering attempt – as 99 people were confirmed by the Courts to have their addresses illegally registered under a shell-form block of flats in Siġġiewi – the concerned Minister for Social and Affordable Accommodation, Roderick Galdes, has not faced any ramifications. 

In a healthy democracy, Galdes would have resigned or would have been forced to resign. Instead, Prime Minister Abela publicly defended his Minister when questioned by journalists. He also took every opportunity to pin the Nationalist Party as the evil force on the Maltese islands, e.g., he condemned them for their “martyrdom” onto the affected families for opening investigations into an action that could have altered the local council election result in the locality.

In 2019, the Labour Party secured a majority in Siġġiewi by just 70 votes from 5470. This year, with this voter fraud emerging in the final weeks of these election campaigns, Siġġiewi turned blue as PN got 58% of the locality’s votes. The town’s new mayor, Julian Borg, recently stated that this fraud had an effect on the elections in not just Siġġiewi, but the entirety of Malta.

Actions speak louder than words, and a very large majority of actions this year (and further back) indicate that the desire to uphold standards by example simply is not there. Rather, through the reshuffling of friendly faces, we are being told that present officials are more concerned with staying in power with their klikka over sustaining good governance.

However, could things be finally turning for the better? Following PL’s supermajority loss last month, Abela and his party have repeated that they shall be analysing citizens’ messages to them. 

On Thursday, 11^th July, the government announced two big improvements on a pair of significant issues in Gozo; authorities cleared up St. George’s Square in Victoria of its encroaching tables and chairs, and then Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri signed the documents to grant Ħondoq ir-Rummien its long desired official environmental protection.

These are two big steps in the right direction in our sister island, although it would be naïve to judge the incumbent administration on one good day in over a year of questionable political decisions and scandals.

The question now remains: as major U-turns, attacks against the judiciary, and corruption are sealed as permanent blemishes in the legacy of Abela’s administration, how fiercely are they willing to combat the practices of their greatest criticisms from now until the next general election, i.e., their next true test to retain power over the country? Is it too late or foolish to expect any better now, after all this time? Probably.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author/s and do not necessarily represent a position or perspective of this or any organisation

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