[ANALYSIS] The Vitals aftermath: Two parties with an identity problem

Adrian Delia’s determination to press on with the Vitals court case despite accusations he was Labour’s Trojan horse has allowed the PN to rediscover unity behind a protest banner.

Bernard Grech should also be credited for sharing the platform with Delia and giving his former leadership rival a deserved moment of glory. In a way Grech’s actions represent a realisation that the party now has a de-facto collective leadership in which the dethroned Delia is now an integral part of and could emerge as a king maker on who will succeed Grech.

Still, this newfound unity comes at a risk; it could further delay any attempt to resolve the party’s identity crisis constantly exposed whenever Labour pushes the boundaries either by expanding civil liberties or by behaving like the PN on steroids in its pro-business agenda.

Adrian Delia has attracted sympathy not just internally but also among independent and middle of the road voters by fronting the court case that delivered concrete results - the rescinding of a contract signed by the Muscat cabal.

However, Delia’s social conservatism remains a turn off for a segment of liberal voters the party needs to make permanent electoral inroads. Ultimately, the party needs to offer a platform that can unite a wide coalition, and this can only be achieved after the party establishes what it really stands for.

Even in this case the party has stopped short of outlining its vision in the health sector and ruling out any privatisation or public private partnerships.

Moreover, while the PN has shown that it can still mobilize angry crowds surreally fired up by the communist anthem Bella Ciao, this comes at a risk.

The PN has already been there when Simon Busuttil was solidly at its helm, and protests and militancy did not pay off in electoral terms.

Once again, people may still find it hard to stomach seeing an establishment party with its own baggage of dirty deals, transfiguring itself into a protest movement. The reality is that the PN’s major challenge remains that of projecting itself as a party which can offer prosperity and fairness in government.

Protests on corruption may galvanise supporters but need to be accompanied by a political programme which can be endorsed by a wide coalition.  And the party still lacks the leader with the gravitas to command respect beyond the cohort of loyal supporters, something which neither Grech nor Delia have and can achieve.

But to get there the party needs a lively debate, which the newfound unity may further postpone, delay or even kill. Ironically, while the party has wasted time in factional bad blood, it still finds little time to debate its economic and social vision.

Muscat’s blip or mortal sin?

But it is not just the PN which is facing an identity crisis. The Labour still has a sense of purpose of transforming the country and benefits from Robert Abela’s gravitas. But the party still refuses to come to terms with what went wrong under Joseph Muscat.

And while in his speech to parliament and when replying to journalists’ questions on Monday, Abela emphasized the distance between him and his predecessor, which he still refuses to call out and name, he insisted he had no apology to make.

“I have no apology to make, I was not involved in that agreement. People will judge me on how I offered a solution to the problem I inherited,” he said. Although this statement recognises that Muscat’s inheritance is problematic, the message sent to rank-and-file Labourites remains ambiguous.

For by stressing that his administration built on the good of his predecessor but took steps to “reform where things were not done well”, Abela still gives the impression that corruption and dirty deals were just collateral damage rather than a sin rooted in an ecosystem where money and power freely intermingled.

This aspect of the Muscat legacy was not just an accidental blip, but something which merits an internal debate with consequences.    

Moreover, Abela’s reluctance to call out his predecessor, who had no qualms in invoking collective cabinet responsibility for the rescinded deal, suggests a sense of insecurity which is harder to fathom, a full year after Abela won power through a super majority on his own steam.

For while between 2019 and 2022 Abela inherited his mandate from Muscat, now he has a mandate of his own and no longer owes anything to his predecessor.

Still his economy with words in expressing any political judgement on Muscat, suggests that Abela is either still in some sort of debt with him or he fears him.

Abela cannot ignore the widespread sentiment in society that a court sentence exposing a fraudulent deal must be followed up with investigations and arraignments of those who enabled such a deal.

Sure, Abela cannot be expected to order the police force or the judiciary to take action. But his refusal to appoint a national prosecutor solely entrusted with investigating corruption cases, speaks volumes on his commitment in creating the right climate for such arraignments and prosecutions to take place.

Abela has practically endorsed the court sentence by asking the court to reduce the time limit for appeal but despite this course of action he cannot reinvent history - it was Delia and not Abela, or anyone from Labour, who fought the legal battle to rescind the contract.

It remains unlikely that Muscat’s legacy will in any way undermine Abela’s majority but the Prime Minister risks committing the same mistakes made by the PN in its golden years - a slow erosion of identity as the fortunes of party and government become intertwined in the absence of any reflection on what it means to be a Labourite in 2023.

It is understandable in this context for the rank-and-file Labourite to feel confused, seeing their own party leader waffle between timidly acknowledging a ‘mistake’ by a former leader and blaming a former star candidate (Konrad Mizzi) without sending a loud and clear message that dirty deals favouring obscure private interests represent a denial of socialism.

For it was this mentality, which also pervades other aspects of governance like land use and planning that corrupts Labour’s soul.

The recent controversy surrounding a tender to hand out public land in Mellieha at a bargain price for developers to turn into flats is another reminder that old habits die hard and Labour in power is still prone to collusion in the pillage and plunder of the commons.