Deciphering Abela’s U-turn: Not pig-headed but brusque

Politics is the art of compromise. Making U-turns look palatable is what distinguishes a statesman from a charlatan.

But even better for a politician is the ability to foresee events and nip problems in the bud before they start to snowball out of control.  Yet that was exactly the situation facing Prime Minister Robert Abela after Labour MPs shot down a parliamentary motion presented by the Opposition for a public inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia.

With Sofia’s relatives confronting Labour MPs inside parliament, by the weekend it had become clear that events had slipped out of Abela’s control.   Abela failed to realise that confronting a grieving mother is the stuff of political nightmares. The confrontation between a mother and the powers that be changed the optics of the situation, conditioning government action to the extent that even Abela’s yacht escapades elicited comparisons with Isabelle Bonnici’s pain.

Had Abela persisted in his stubbornness, every single action of his would have been seen against this backdrop. Instead of losing steam, the campaign for a public inquiry was snowballing into something bigger.

The snowball effects

By Monday, in the face of public backlash and with Labour MPs and Cabinet members reporting the frustration of constituents, Abela must have realised he was in a hole and his best choice was to stop digging.

At that stage he wisely chose to accept the family’s demand for a public inquiry which will be presided by Ombudsman and judge emeritus Joseph Zammit Mc Keon, a person who surely enjoys the Opposition’s trust.

In this sense Abela did the right thing by accepting the popular demand for a public inquiry and he did so without undermining the process by either limiting the terms of reference to the bare essential or appointing a Labour sympathiser to head it.

Clearly it must have dawned on Abela that the cost of stubbornness simply outweighed that of an inelegant and terse U-turn. The problem for Abela is he changed tack in a brusque and abrupt way. Ultimately what makes a U-turn elegant is a convincing explanation for the change of heart. And in this case, there was a change of heart but no logical explanation to account for it.

For weeks Abela had been saying that a public inquiry would clash with a magisterial inquiry and gave the impression the two are incompatible.

He continued to do so in a hard-hitting interview with MaltaToday the day after the parliamentary vote, albeit leaving room for possible further inquiries after the magisterial report is concluded.

But the fact that government has now accepted the demand for a public inquiry simply shows that the legalistic arguments brought forward in the past days did not hold water.

As argued by the family, both inquiries can be held at the same time, one focusing on administrative and political responsibilities and the other on criminal responsibilities. In fact, Abela could well have avoided all this by making the Opposition motion his own, perhaps by amending it without changing its substance a week ago.

Instead, by Monday it was clear that the PM was capitulating to force majeure.  To make things worse his own predecessor Joseph Muscat had stepped in his shoes, suggesting that a public inquiry may well be held, albeit after the conclusion of the magisterial inquiry. It remains unclear whether Muscat did so to facilitate Abela’s U-turn by warming supporters to the inevitable change of heart or whether he did so to take on the role of party saviour in a moment of great difficulty.

What is sure is that Abela needed an explanation to prop up his U-turn. One elegant way would have been to simply acknowledge the perseverance and strength of Isabelle Bonnici. Bowing in front of a grieving mother is no political dishonour.

Surely Abela may well argue that he cannot bow in front of every grieving mother, but in this case, we were dealing with a series of fatalities in the construction industry, which deserve national scrutiny and Bonnici has given voice to the pain of other victims.   

Blame it on the magistrate

But rather than opting for humility to explain his U-turn, Abela had to give his most fanatical supporters a pound of flesh by lashing at one of Labour’s favourite bête noirs - the judiciary. In the psyche of the party’s grass roots the judiciary is often associated with the PN-aligned establishment.

To justify his change of heart Abela lashed out at the magistrate for extending the Sofia inquiry for yet another period.

There is nothing wrong in pointing out that eight months seems a bit too long for a magisterial inquiry to be concluded, especially when a similar inquiry in the Miriam Pace case lasted one-and-a-half months. The Opposition could well have defused this weapon in Abela’s arsenal by joining in the call on the magistrate to conclude her work as fast as possible.

But the PM’s choice to blame it on the magistrate sees him threading on thin ice. His outburst may further undermine trust in the judiciary on the eve of major decisions like that related to the pending inquiry on the Vitals scandal, which may lead to the prosecution of former Labour politicians.

Moreover, the PM was hitting out against a target (the magistrate) who cannot defend herself in public to justify her position.

It is also pertinent to point out that the problem of delays in inquiries is a long-standing one to the extent that 34 out of 59 inquiries on deaths or major accidents in the construction sector commenced after 2017 remain pending.

Surely this requires serious reflection and action, including that of ensuring the judiciary is equipped by all the necessary tools to deliver justice in a timely manner.  Moreover, Abela himself has never questioned the delays in other pending inquiries including those related to the spin offs from the Panama and hospital scandals.

Still, while no cow is sacred, and the judiciary is not above scrutiny, it is clear that little has changed since last week when the 40 Labour MPs voted against a public inquiry. Even at that stage there was no clear indication that the magisterial inquiry was nearing conclusion.

And even at that stage Abela could have committed himself to calling a public inquiry immediately after the publication of the magisterial inquiry, thus leaving space for manoeuvre.  Instead, he argued that in this case a public inquiry was not needed as justice can only be delivered by a magisterial inquiry.

This clearly shows that what changed was the public mood and the angry backlash against the government among, including Labour’s grassroots, who sympathised and identified with Isabelle Bonnici’s impassioned call for justice.

This was also a case in which Opposition leader Bernard Grech played his cards well, leaving space for civil society to set the tune while showing his support without going overboard.  In this sense it was difficult for Abela to depict Bonnici’s campaign as a partisan one.  Bonnici’s own words of praise for the PM during last Monday’s vigil was proof enough of her unwillingness to play a political game. This also shows that while Abela excels in direct conflicts with the Opposition, he is much weaker when confronted by non-partisan campaigns and calls for justice.

In this sense, Isabelle Bonnici was a hard nut to crack, even harder than Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family which in the Labour psyche is associated with her vitriolic anti-Labour bias.

Abela’s history of U-turns

The latest episode also exposes one major strength and one major weakness in Abela’s political character; his ability to stop digging when in a hole and his inability to stop elegantly by providing a logical explanation for his U-turns.  Even before being elected Labour leader, Abela initially failed to see any conflict on his wife retaining her lawyer job in the Planning Authority.

Yet, faced with a backlash he changed tack promising to do away with this potential conflict.

Before the general election he had dropped a yacht marina proposal in Marsaskala which his government had previously supported to send a message to disenchanted voters angered by the government’s poor track-record on environmental issues.  This was a classic case of Abela testing the waters before withdrawing when faced by a backlash.  But in this case the withdrawal was well choreographed as an act of green redemption during the electoral campaign. Those criticising the PM for being weak for committing a U-turn may well consider the alternative of having a PM who rides rough shod on popular demands.

Yet there have been less elegant U-turns.

Even with regards to Rosianne Cutajar, the PM changed tack from wholeheartedly defending the Labour MP from a “misogynistic attack” to ditching her after her chats with Yorgen Fenech became the talk of town.

Just weeks ago, Abela even tried to give the impression that nothing had changed in proposed amendments to the abortion law, despite the fundamental change that unlike the original amendment, the final version did not include any provision for abortion in cases where women risk grave jeopardy to her health in non-life-threatening situations.

Instead Abela chose to ditch what he originally presented as a feminist principle worth fighting for in the face of a conservative backlash, to avoid a damaging constitutional crisis involving the Presidency. In so doing pro-choice voices felt understandably betrayed simply because Abela had overreached ultimately promising what he could not deliver and for sacrificing a principle on the altar of political convenience.

And while on abortion Abela had a principle to fallback to for pressing ahead with the reform, in the case of Isabelle Bonnici’s call for a public inquiry his obstinance was motivated by an incomprehensible legalism.

The latest U-turn does suggest that the PM is not pig headed but the fact that he did not anticipate the turn of events has raised questions on his political savviness and nous.

It remains to be seen whether Abela’s U-turn has arrested the haemorrhage of trust in Labour’s own heartlands.