Allowing the pigs back at the trough

Robert Abela made an about-turn when he reached out to Joseph Muscat by calling him ‘my friend’ in front of a Labour audience on Sunday. 

It was the first time since becoming leader in 2020 that Abela acknowledged Muscat in this way and his audience reciprocated with the lengthiest applause of the event. 

By embracing Muscat as ‘a friend’, Abela was strategically targeting the disgruntled Labour grassroots, who feel cast aside by their own party. 

Many card-carrying Labourites have not taken lightly to the growing expectation that Muscat could be indicted for wrongdoing by a magisterial inquiry investigating the Steward hospitals contract. To them, the news stories that have emerged of lucrative consultancy contracts Muscat benefitted from after leaving politics and the magisterial inquiry itself are nothing more than a conspiracy by his detractors to destroy him, after he brought the Nationalist Party to its knees. This is obviously a very myopic view of things. 

Muscat has denied wrongdoing and has even tried to remove the magistrate from the inquiry, citing a conflict of interest because her father and sibling made unfavourable public comments in his regard. Muscat has skilfully played his hand to foment anger among Labour’s rank and file by portraying himself as the victim in TV appearances on Manuel Cuschieri’s programmes on Smash TV. 

The truth is that despite the good he did and irrespective of the impressive electoral successes he captained, Muscat is today a damaged brand. 

A journalist was murdered on his watch and the alleged mastermind was none other than Yorgen Fenech, who enjoyed unfettered access to the corridors of power. 

Two flagship projects of the Muscat administration – the Electrogas power station and the hospitals contract – have been mired in controversy with serious allegations of corruption hanging over them. 

And it is not just journalists who have outed the serious stuff. The respected National Audit Office published three damning reports on the hospitals contract. The NAO said the contract appeared to be a done deal, which was then followed by every imaginable action by government to keep it alive even at the cost of undermining the national interest. 

The Court of Appeal was also scathing in its ruling when it confirmed an earlier judgment that cancelled the hospitals contract. 

And serious questions still remain unanswered on the intentions of Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi when they opened secretive companies in Panama with Yorgen Fenech’s company listed as a client. 

Abela was fully cognizant of Muscat’s poisoned legacy. Until last Sunday, Abela used to praise the good things done by Muscat’s administrations but kept his predecessor at arm’s length to ensure he does not burn himself if the ex-prime minister goes down. Understandably, this strategy did not go down too well with the party diehards. 

But now the Prime Minister has ditched caution and embraced Muscat to satisfy the Labour core. 

In doing so, the Prime Minister has painted himself into a corner. If the magisterial inquiry into the hospitals deal does recommend criminal action be taken against Muscat, the Prime Minister will have little moral authority to calm the waters. Those who applauded Abela on Sunday will rightfully ask what the Prime Minister will do to help his ‘friend’. 

Abela is playing with fire because as Prime Minister there is nothing he can do to prevent any prosecutions (if this is the case) short of undemocratically undermining the institutions.  

Abela calling Muscat his ‘friend’ was not a simple blip; it was not the wrong choice of words but a deliberate use of language to try and create a new narrative. The outreach was part of a strategy to tell diehard supporters he is no longer willing to censure Labour officials, MPs and people close to the party. 

Three days later, the former CEO of the MFSA, Joseph Cuschieri, was brought in from the cold and appointed by Environment Minister Miriam Dalli as CEO of Project Green. This happened three years after Cuschieri resigned from the MFSA following an internal investigation that found he breached ethics by going on a fully-expensed trip to Las Vegas with Yorgen Fenech in 2018. 

Worse still, Robert Abela, went on to open the door for Rosianne Cutajar’s return to the Labour fold, insisting she had paid the price for her misdeeds. He simply ignored a recent NAO probe that showed how Cutajar was given a phantom job at the tourism school in 2019 in what was an evident move to placate her discontent. 

All this wreaks of a déjà vu. When Joseph Muscat took office in 2013 – and even before that time – he adopted a no-nonsense approach to misdemeanours and wrongdoing by his ministers and MPs. Muscat had asked Manuel Mallia to resign from home affairs minister when his driver shot at someone on the street; Muscat had asked Michael Falzon to step down from parliamentary secretary when an NAO report attributed collusion between Falzon’s aide and a businessman who stood to benefit from decisions taken by the Lands Authority. 

But then, in 2016 when the Panama Papers scandal erupted, Muscat refused to take any action against Keith Schembri. At that point, Muscat lost the moral strength to take any action against his ministers if they were embroiled in wrongdoing. His no-nonsense approach to governance took a nose-dive and despite the electoral success that ensued we all know how things ended up horribly for him and his government in December 2019. 

Unfortunately, Abela’s zeal to make a clean break with the toxic legacy of Muscat’s administration has now been compromised. It appears he will no longer go after the pound of flesh or seek to censor them if any of his ministers err. 

The Prime Minister may have won brownie points with PL loyalists but in doing so he has ditched decency and lifted the middle finger to the silent majority that is seeing its lifestyle being eroded by inflation while the pigs are allowed back at the trough.