2018: A year forged in Daphne’s legacy

Malta’s economy continued to grow beyond expectations in 2018, marking its longest run since independence with real growth in excess of 4%. Public finances remained on the surest footing in decades and new jobs continued being created unabated. Valletta also celebrated its title as European Capital of Culture and Malta successfully hosted two blockchain summits. And the L-Istrina charity telethon collected a record of €7.1 million and Parliament got its first Standards Commissioner.

But the good news of 2018 could not escape the long shadow cast by the legacy of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

From the rule of law missions mandated by the European Parliament to the constant attention Malta received from foreign civil rights organisations; from the incessant European pressure over Malta’s taxation system to international journalists turning their guns on top government officials, 2018 was a year forged in Daphne’s legacy.

It had to be. Caruana Galizia was the first journalist ever to be assassinated in Malta. The brutal murder shocked a country and reverberated across Europe and the world.

The immediate arrest and prosecution of three men accused of planting the bomb and detonating it was a positive development, and unprecedented when compared to the politically-charged murders of Karin Grech and Raymond Caruana that remain unsolved till this very day.

But the prosecution of three men who did someone else’s bidding was never going to be enough to close the dark chapter.

It is within this context that 2018 was born in the shadow of that fateful afternoon of 16 October 2017.

The battle-line in flowers

Caruana Galizia’s murder prompted a new breed of civil society activism.

The movement calling for justice, embodied in the many groups that mushroomed in the wake of the journalist’s murder, is not representative of a wide cross-section of society. It is also fragmented. And the association of this movement with a vocal faction of the Nationalist Party still loyal to former leader Simon Busuttil is too strong to dismiss easily.

But despite the limitations, the movement gave the Caruana Galizia legacy a tangible form in 2018. The constant tug-of-war with government functionaries throughout the year over the clearing of the Valletta memorial to Caruana Galizia at the foot of the Great Siege monument also created a physical battle-line. Flowers, candles and portraits became a source of conflict.

This struggle energised activists and led to the formation of the grouping Repubblika in November, a new formation that has the makings of a political movement and which appears willing to stand out of Caruana Galizia’s shadow and target good governance issues.

Activists place candles and flowers at the foot of the Great Siege monument hours after it was cleared by government workers

The problem with Repubblika, however, is that its principle exponents are disgruntled Nationalists unsatisfied with Adrian Delia’s PN leadership. This in itself is a limitation.

In 2018, the different groupings born as a result of Caruana Galizia’s murder exhibited resilience but appear to have left very little impact on the population at large.

The Delia conundrum

Caruana Galizia’s legacy left a bigger impact on Delia than on Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

Throughout 2018, Delia’s trust rating as measured by MaltaToday surveys stood at an average of 20.1% as he struggled with internal party dissent. The criticism from activist quarters found fertile ground among pockets of Nationalist voters still loyal to Delia’s predecessor. This made it hard for the PN leader to stamp his authority on the party in his first year at the helm.

The PN found itself in a fix. Still unable to assail the Labour Party’s strong lead, polls showed the PN was also losing its core voters to abstention.

After attempting to oust Busuttil from the parliamentary group in August, by the end of 2018, Delia’s strategists appear to have realised the party had no hope of moving forward unless it embraced the former leader’s faction.

Adrian Delia has faced several difficulties in stamping his authority on the party in his first year at the helm

An added complication for the PN leader was the personal situation he found himself in after his wife asked for a separation. It has to be seen whether the messy separation will have an impact on Delia’s ability to dedicate his full energy to lead the PN in 2019 as he faces his first electoral tests.

The European Parliament election and local council elections in May 2019 will pit Delia against Muscat for the first time. They will also be the first elections to be held in the aftermath of Caruana Galizia’s murder, giving justice activists a chance to try and influence the vote.

The Egrant relief

Muscat has so far emerged unscathed by the international media onslaught and the domestic criticism from civil action groups born after Caruana Galizia’s murder.

Surveys conducted by MaltaToday showed that Muscat continued to enjoy strong trust ratings in 2018. His trust rating averaged at 51.2% and he was consistently more popular than his own party.

The Prime Minister’s standing was buoyed in July when the Egrant inquiry conducted by Magistrate Aaron Bugeja put paid to allegations that the Panama company belonged to Muscat’s wife, Michelle, and that millions of euros were transferred by Azeri individuals to the Muscats.

While only the conclusions were made public, the Egrant inquiry dented Caruana Galizia’s legacy and strengthened Muscat’s hand.

The Egrant inquiry’s findings provided Muscat and the nation with some relief after the acrimony the allegations caused in the 2017 election.

The conclusions also made it easier for people to dismiss serious revelations made later in the year linked to 17 Black, a Dubai company.

Joseph Muscat breaks down in tears as he mentions his children and wife and what they endured during the publication of the allegations on Egrant back in July

17 Black also forms part of the Caruana Galizia legacy, having first been mentioned in a cryptic post by the slain journalist at the start of 2017.

In November, Reuters identified the owner of 17 Black as Yorgen Fenech, a shareholder of the Tumas Group and investor in the Electrogas power station.

This created a toxic link between the Electrogas investor, minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri. The latter two had included 17 Black as a target client for their Panama companies.

While Muscat was exonerated from wrongdoing in the Egrant case, in 2018 he continued being hounded over the actions of Mizzi and Schembri, two of his closest allies. The 17 Black affair may yet come back to bite the Prime Minister despite the huge popularity he enjoys.

A European shadow

On the European stage the criticism towards Malta intensified in 2018.

Muscat’s refusal to axe Mizzi and Schembri after they were outed two years ago as having opened companies in Panama, led to a conflation of arguments by European exponents that tried to link Caruana Galizia’s murder with Panama Papers and the programme to sell citizenship to rich foreigners.

Some exponents of the European Parliament tried to hammer home an image of Malta mired in corruption and money laundering, akin to a mafia state. While some of the criticism was justified, many times it was exaggerated.

Muscat may have enjoyed respect among fellow prime ministers and presidents at the European Council – he is a veteran of sorts around the table despite his young age – but is less liked in the European Parliament, where a press room was named after Caruana Galizia.

The long shadow cast on 2018 by Caruana Galizia’s murder is very likely to persist next year, at least until the May elections even as the country continues to enjoy unprecedented levels of prosperity.