[ANALYSIS] Will a mass meeting on 1 May exorcise Panamagate?

In the face of concrete evidence provided by the Daphne Project that establishes a link between a mysterious Dubai company called 17 Black and the two Panama companies owned by Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, Joseph Muscat has called on his supporters to rally on May 1.

“The best reply we can give is on May 1, when the people will unite as one in Valletta to convey our message,” he said on radio last Sunday.

Sure enough May 1 – which commemorates international workers’ day – has been a fixture on the Labour movement’s calendar for decades. But never before the last two years, has the day been so intricately linked with the dark shadow cast by the Panama cloud.

The ironic twist being that international workers’ day has now been adulterated with the defence of political officials engaged in the sort of offshore business which makes socialists in other countries cringe.

From trial by votes to trial by crowds

Turn back the clock by a year.

On May 1, 2017 in a bullish speech Muscat announced that he was calling for a snap election a year ahead of its time.

His decision to go for an election was justified by the fact that he himself was on the receiving end of the Egrant allegations. The accusation backed by what was still at the time a faceless whistleblower was too big to be ignored by the PM.

This was because Daphne Caruana Galizia was claiming that his wife was not just the owner of a mysterious third company registered in Panama but was also receiving funds from Azerbaijan. Muscat replied by calling it the “biggest lie in Maltese political history.”

But the decision to go for a snap election also came in the wake of reports of alleged kickbacks paid to Keith Schembri from the passport scheme.

While the decision to go to the polls a year before the expiry of the legislature effectively turned the election into a trial by votes, neither could Muscat afford remaining in office as a lame duck Prime Minister, awaiting the outcome of an inquiry, which has yet not been published a year later.

Had Muscat not called for an election he would still be facing an election in the same position he was last year. Holding on in this way was politically untenable. Short of resigning until his name was cleared, the only realistic option for Muscat at that point in time was to call for another mandate.

While Egrant, which now bears the face of whistleblower Maria Efimova, may well come back to haunt Muscat in the future, it clearly backfired on the Opposition in last year’s election.

This is because the allegations against Muscat’s wife helped him in turning the focus away from Panamagate. This shows how by raising the stakes in its drive to strike directly at Muscat, the Opposition simply managed to dig its own grave.

Yet while one has to recognise that the election did confirm the electorate’s trust in Muscat, it did not in any way absolve Keith Schembri or Konrad Mizzi.

In fact, polls had always shown that a majority of the population wanted them to resign.

Post-electoral amnesia

It is what happened after the election which exposes Muscat to the charge that he used the election result to whitewash lingering doubts on his government’s good governance credentials. For instead of using the scale of his victory to clean up his stables, he used it to bolster the status quo.

After trouncing the Opposition by the same margin of 2013, he felt strong enough to reappoint Konrad Mizzi as Minister responsible for tourism and public private partnerships and retain Keith Schembri as his chief of staff.

Since than the electoral mandate has been repeatedly invoked to justify the lack of any further action against the two. His reasoning may have been: If people still gave Labour a 35K victory with Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi at the helm, why remove them from office now?

The electoral result had already been invoked to shoot down the conclusion of a rule of law investigation by MEPs in December.

From elections to monster meetings

Now the government takes comfort in countering the Daphne Project’s revelations on 17 Black by resorting to another demonstration of support for the government.

This is being done at the risk of strengthening the perception that he is resorting to mob rule to shoot down critics.

While the mass meeting can be perceived as a legitimate way to celebrate the government’s achievements in the economy and social policy, the idea of giving foreign journalists a “reply” has taken root on the social media and the PM has encouraged this feeling in his radio address.

Yet, in reality, neither the election nor any subsequent polls have cast away the dark shadow cast on the Labour government’s failure to investigate the secret Panama companies in 2016.

Furthermore no show of support will hide Malta from well-deserved international scrutiny. Calling a popular show of force to counter a project backed by respectable news organisations indicates signs of panic.

Respecting the electoral mandate

Yet while elections, polls and mass meetings cannot exorcise the spectre of Panama, in the same way corruption allegations, even those backed by mounting evidence (as is clearly the case with revelations on 17 Black), will not necessarily translate in a loss of support for Muscat.

In fact, questioning Labour’s electoral mandate on the basis of these allegations simply reinforces Muscat’s hand.

For while one cannot exclude a slow erosion of consent as people slowly digest damning evidence with regards to Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, expecting people to withdraw their consent is a step too far.

The brutal assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has increased polarisation, which pits those who defend government at all costs against those who in varying degrees blame Muscat for her murder.

But Muscat will not be disappearing any time soon.

This is because Labour was reconfirmed in office not because of the Panama issue but because of economic prosperity and tangible improvements in daily life ranging from free childcare to more civil liberties.

In this sense Muscat can only be beaten politically by the Opposition parties if these can present a more coherent alternative, perhaps by focusing on concerns related to the deterioration of the quality of life; which is the other side of the coin of Muscat’s ‘economy on steroids’.

In this sense good governance, if widened to include these concerns, may well be the battle cry for change. Yet this is inevitably a long-term project, which depends on the PN’s leadership’s ability to understand Maltese society.

The limits of a movement

So what are the realisable goals of the anti-corruption movement which has emerged in the past months? At the very most, it can force Muscat to ditch Mizzi and Schembri and ensure that the institutions are strengthened.

Yet this aim can only be achieved by appealing to a segment of Labour voters. Keeping the spirits high in the echo chamber is not enough if one aspires to concrete change.

Over the top condemnation of Muscat’s government makes it even harder for people to move away from entrenched positions.

Muscat knows that this is unlikely to happen if the debate is polarised by extreme positions, which leave ‘in betweens’ and internal critics isolated and disenfranchised.

The dynamics following a protest against Muscat’s attendance at a gala organised by Henley and Partners in London follows this script to the letter.

While it served to unleash the worse side of intolerance on Labour’s side who pounced on individual activists, it also pitted activists against a popular national icon; Joseph Calleja. Legitimate protest? Definitely yes. But tactically wise? Not quite.

Still it also exposes one big risk Muscat is taking by seeking legitimacy from numbers in a mass meeting; that of tarnishing his reputation as the unifying moderate.

Lines have already been crossed through on-line abuse which comes across as mob rule.

Recalling that Caruana Galizia herself used to publish photos to subject Labour supporters to public ridicule simply reinforces a downward spiral, which could be explosive in the present context.

Muscat’s moral leadership is being severely tested by his failure to send a clear message that the use of abusive language on the social media is always wrong even when used by his supporters.

Perhaps he may well use his May 1 speech on international workers day to send two clear messages; that corruption is always wrong and that online abuse cannot be tolerated.

For one of the big risks for Muscat is that by not taking action against Schembri and Mizzi, he may also be sending a message to underlings that their misdemeanours will be met with impunity.

But Muscat’s greatest advantage in all this is electoral fatigue. Partisans on opposite sides of the political divide have been at each other’s throats for more than two years.

This further pushes more people to take the back seat; a prospect which becomes more appealing the more polarised the debate becomes. Moreover, many find themselves in the awkward position of supporting many reforms pushed by the present government while feeling outrage at the way Muscat has tackled the whole Panama issue.

This results in the ultimate paradox: the more things change, the more they tend to remain the same.