Speedy Gulia (aka 'The fastest resignation in the West')...

And to think that people still complain about the lack of a resignation culture in this country (and, worse still, to think that I myself was one of them, until fairly recently…)

I don’t know. Looking back, it’s almost as though we were talking about a different country altogether. Remember? That place we all once lived in: where public officials would invariably cling onto their positions like limpets, for years (if not decades) at a stretch… to the point where they got so firmly encrusted, you couldn’t pry them off with a crowbar if you spent an entire lifetime trying…

Today? A whole different ballgame. In the past 12 months alone, we have witnessed the resignation (and/or termination) of: one prime minister; three senior Cabinet ministers; one MEP; one OPM chief of staff; one Attorney General; one Police Commissioner (to add to the four others who resigned previously); one PL deputy leader; two CEOs of regulatory authorities; one Opposition leader; two Opposition MPs…

Phew, I’m out of breath already. And it’s not just the unprecedented number of high (and not-so high) profile resignations we have all witnessed this year; no, it’s also the incremental speed at which some of those resignation have taken place.

OK, tell you what: I’ll replay that list in slow motion, so we can all home in on the action.

Joseph Muscat may top the ladder in terms of national profile; but he is (almost) in last place when it comes to duration of office before resignation… having lasted seven full years before January; and having also survived repeated resignation calls ever since 2016, at the earliest.

Justyne Caruana, Edward Scicluna and Konrad Mizzi had all served in the Cabinet since 2013; and Keith Schembri was likewise among the first appointments of the incoming Muscat administration.

Former AG Peter Grech comes in as the slowest resignation so far: having been originally appointed a few years before the 2013 election… but then, the spurt begins.

Suddenly, Miriam Dalli overtakes the lot, with her resignation taking place six years after her election to the European Parliament in 2014. Then Lawrence Cutajar shoots ahead on the strength of his 2016 appointment as Police Commissioner: neck and neck with Chris Cardona, who was elected PL deputy leader that same year.

And just when you think the race is heading for a draw: quick as a flash, Adrian Delia takes the lead in August, after only three years as PN leader….

But wait, what’s that large, rapidly expanding dust-cloud on the horizon? And whose voice is that, shouting what sounds suspiciously like: ‘Andale! Andale! Arriba, Arriba, Arriba!’…

…WHO-O-OOSH! (‘Beep, Beep!’)… KER-BLA-A-AM…! [sound of birds chirping]…

Hang on, what the heck even happened there? Wait, don’t tell me: that was the sound of ‘Speedy Gulia’ dashing past the finishing line, literally seconds after entering the race: breaking the sound barrier in the process, and leaving all his competitors scattered by the roadside, still enveloped by lingering clouds of dust…

Well, what can I say? We have a clear winner, folks. Not only did Gavin’s effectively become the fastest resignation we have ever seen… actually, scratch that: it was too fast to even be visible to an unblinking eye… but it stands a fair chance of entering the Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest resignation in the history of the entire human race, too.

Personally, I can’t even imagine that anyone would have actually managed quite such a feat in the past: and no, not in the future, either.

According to this newspaper, Gavin Gulia resigned literally ‘within seconds’ of taking oath as a Member of Parliament. Ah, but how many seconds, exactly? If it’s less than 9.58, Gavin would have beaten Usain Bolt’s 2019 world record for the 100-metre sprint. And by the look of things, he may have even surpassed that by target by far… seeing as his resignation letter was publicly announced “while Gulia was supposed to be taking his oath of office…”

Effectively, then, it seems that he resigned his post before even assuming it. And if there is any truth to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity… that means he must have also broken the light speed barrier: becoming the first object in the known Universe to have ever travelled so fast, that it arrived at its destination before actually leaving…

Small wonder there are all those tiny little Tweety-birds, dancing in circles around our heads. And small wonder, too, so many people would be asking questions about Gavin Gulia’s unbeatable world record (like, um… is he as fast as that in absolutely EVERYTHING he does…?)

Take the Opposition, for instance: being the sore losers they are (understandably enough, given that their own contestant was in the lead before Speedy Gulia showed up), they are openly contesting the final result. “Nobody believes that Robert Abela and Gavin Gulia did not plan out today’s charade in full disrespect of the will of voters,” they cried; “Robert Abela is manipulating the democratic system to choose someone of his liking rather than a person elected by the people…”

And to be fair: it’s an issue the Opposition Party certainly knows a good deal about… having similarly ‘manipulated the democratic system’ so often (and to such great effect) throughout the almost 25 years it spent in government…

… but, like our previous ‘No Resignation’ culture, that’s all ancient history now. No, the Opposition does indeed have valid reason to be suspicious. Apart from the sheer improbability of Gavin’s recorded resignation speed… there’s also the small matter of the conditions at the Parliament building he was in such a desperate hurry to leave.

I mean… OK, I understand all the usual complaints about life as a Maltese MP: that the remuneration is on the low side; that it’s a part-time job, and that Renzo Piano’s design didn’t take into account such necessities as childcare centres, nappy-changing rooms, facilities for breast-feeding while addressing the Plenary, and all the rest of it….

But… come on, it can’t be THAT bad. I mean, it’s not as though MPs are strapped to their Parliamentary streets, and forced to listen to an endless loop of live acoustic sets by Nickleback, or anything like that…

Yet look at them all: as eager to get the hell out of that place, as they once pretended to be keen on getting in. And now, they’re even setting new world land-speed records, in their mad scramble for the door…

Something clearly must be very rotten in the state of Malta’s House of Representatives at the moment. So perhaps someone should get the Commission for Standards in Public Life to look into it for us (not sure why, but the theme-song of ‘Il Mio Amico Arnold’ just started playing in my head: ‘Now the world don’t move, to the beat of just one drum…’)

Hang on, must still be in a daze. Where was I? Ah, yes. Questions. Next up, there’s the one about ‘what the people want’. I may be wrong, of course… but I somehow doubt that the 2,216 voters who gave Gavin Gulia their No. 1 in 2017 – or the 1,416 whose votes he inherited in the by-election – voted for the privilege of observing Speedy Gulia spraying champagne bottles, as he celebrates his victory to tumultuous applause.

No, I suspect they would have preferred seeing his ‘speediness’ applied to other areas of public life: like, say, in a government ministry somewhere (let’s face: there are a couple which could use a rocket up their backsides…).

Which brings me to the most baffling question of them all. It’s one thing, I suppose, if your resignation could be interpreted as an ‘early retirement’, complete with ‘golden handshake’ (or ‘kick upstairs’, if you prefer) … and another thing altogether, if it’s because of corruption; or some scandal you may or may not have been embroiled in; or to clear your name of criminal allegations, etc…

… but… resigning to resume your previous role as Malta Tourism Authority CEO? At a time when global tourism is almost at a standstill – and, according to the most modest prognostics, will remain so for at least two years – and most of Malta’s tourism industry is on government (and EU) life-support?

A damned waste of athletic potential, if you ask me. No, a man of Gavin Gulia’s superhuman capabilities would be far better positioned elsewhere, I should think. Like, for instance… the law-courts.

Just imagine, for a moment, how much more ‘expeditious’ the delivery of justice would be, with Speedy Gulia employed somewhere in the court registry. Why, if his resignation record were to repeated there… cases would be concluded before they were even filed (and who knows: with time briefly reversed, the court might even pay you E500 for filing one, instead of the other way round…).

And that backlog, that no Chief Justice or Justice Minister has ever managed to shorten in the past? All gone, in the time it would take to say ‘Andale! Andale! Arriba, Arriba, Arriba!’…

… which reminds me: COVID-19. We could get Gavin Gulia to oversee the roll-out of the new vaccination. That way, we’d all get immunized against this deadly virus… before even getting ourselves inoculated at all…!

Can you imagine the benefits for Malta’s health service: if not, to humanity as a whole? Heck, Gavin might even end up winning the Nobel Prize for Medicine. And besides: it would be worth it just for all the new conspiracy theories it would automatically create…

But no. Speedy Gulia has decided to apply his Superhero skills to the one area that arguably needs them least. Why? Is it because – as implied by the Opposition’s doubts – Robert Abela wanted someone else in his Parliamentary group, at this particular time…?

Nah, of course not. Bad sportsmanship, that is. Personally, I reckon it’s more the need for speed, as an end itself: you know, that indescribable thrill of feeling – even for just one nanosecond – like Keanu Reeves, dodging bullets in ‘The Matrix’…