Yesterday’s events can be hailed as a victory by everyone except Robert Abela. In a dramatic couple of hours, Robert Abela had to cut his holiday short, perform a spectacular U-turn on the Sofia Public Inquiry, and then get unceremoniously booed by the crowd at the vigil. No matter how hard he tries to sell it, this has been the latest (and possibly politically fatal) incident in a disastrous series of events over the last few months.
On Wednesday 11th July the Labour parliamentary group voted against opening a public inquiry into the tragic death of Jean Paul Sofia, who was killed in December 2022 when a building he simply happened to be in collapsed. He is not the only victim of the construction industry over the past few years, but his case was made particularly painful by the fact that he was ‘one of us’ – a young Labour supporter from a humble working class background.
Despite a magisterial inquiry being launched, Abela and his government resisted opening a public inquiry arguing that they are pretty much the same thing. They are not. A magisterial inquiry deals with criminal responsibility. A public inquiry deals with political responsibility and institutional failures. I hope that those claiming that they are the same realise how absurd it would be in legal terms to have two complicated processes that are identical in purpose to one another. Neither does one depend on the other, because even that would be a legal absurdity. Why have two distinct processes, requiring distinct set-ups, which could ultimately be merged into one long process? The reasons for this resistance soon became obvious: a suspicious deal that involved the Lands Department, politically connected individuals, and a shady company with incomplete accounts.
If there is one thing our judicial system does not need, it is lengthy and purposeless legal processes. The system is bad enough as it is. It is the reason why the Sofia magisterial inquiry is taking so long, and why there is a massive backlog of such magisterial inquiries stretching back decades. Our legal system is stretched to its limit as it is. But as with most of our systems, it is a broken system that those in power have no interest to fix. Despite all the theatrics, it suits politicians and big businesses fine. Any inquiry that involves politically exposed persons would take so long that by the time any conclusions are reached, any political damage would have diminished to almost nothing. What’s more, unlike public inquiries, magisterial inquiries are secret and their findings not made public. Politically, very convenient, which is why the PL parliamentary group has enthusiastically backed one and not the other.
Nor can this u-turn be claimed as a victory by the Nationalist Party. Although some of the PN parliamentary group joined the outcry early on, this remained squarely Isabelle Bonnici Sofia’s personal crusade for justice. The PN was just another of the many supporting voices that pushed for the inquiry. And the PN does not exactly have a brilliant track record of political acumen and initiative, having spent the last decade in Opposition absorbed in in-fighting and wound-licking. The only reason that the PN seems to be making some headway recently, is because the PL is fast-losing its own grassroots supporters. But your enemy’s losses cannot be counted as victories unless you’ve been the one doing the fighting. No matter how hard they try, they are still part of the same broken and corrupt system. Sure they might be a little less corrupt, but just because you live next door to a brothel, it does not make you a virgin.
Even though more and more people abandoning Labour, the PN has not managed to translate them into losses. Many Labour politicians, despite deep down knowing how disastrous Abela’s premiership has been, simply hope to feast on his political carcass once he’s well and truly done for. Just watch Muscat gleefully joining the call for a public inquiry at the eleventh hour. This was not done out of any form of moral conviction or some Damascene moment. It’s pure political opportunism. Mark my words, Abela’s downfall will come from within. The person who will betray him is simply waiting for the opportune moment. And that downfall will now come faster than we think.
So far Abela had played a game of appeasal, trying to balance the many factions within his own party: the Muscatophiles, the little Ministerial fiefdoms, the hardcore old-style Labourites, the progressives, the moderates, etc etc. But in order to do so, he has stretched an already ailing system to its limits. Whilst Muscat, with all his amoral opportunism, could at least count some achievements, Abela has none. Worse, all the inherited projects from Muscat have imploded, with Abela having to weather the storm. Just look at the mess in the energy sector. People were willing to ignore the blatantly corrupt deals as long as Abela managed to subsidise energy. But what’s the use of subsidised energy when electricity supply fails repeatedly in peak summer in a record-breaking heatwave?
Institutional corruption means nothing to the average person on the street. It’s full implications are too complex and too grand for people to fully understand. But people understand power cuts, inflation, traffic, overcrowded environments, and bad public service. Not only has Abela failed to address these issues with anything closely resembling a vision, but he himself threw fuel on the flames by encouraging the Ministerial fiefdoms and creating a huge unwieldy Cabinet.
Labour did not invent nepotism. There was plenty of that under Fenech Adami and Gonzi. But the PN was clever about it – they made sure that either you had competent friends in the top jobs, or else you keep a few key hardworking outsiders whilst giving the comfy jobs to family and friends. In 2013 Labour had also adopted that model, but after 2017, things started sliding rapidly. Ministries (and their satellite institutions) suddenly created swathes of jobs to keep constituents happy. Speak to anyone who has worked at Transport Malta prior to 2017, and they will tell you exactly how hopeless the situation has become. That is, unless they’ve already resigned. The remaining competent loyalists have ended up so demoralised and in some cases even bullied, that they have also quit. One need look only at the cases of Conrad Borg Manché and Christian Zammit (mayors of Gżira and Xagħra respectively) to see that in action.
But Abela ploughed on, reasoning that no-one is indispensable, and that you will always find someone willing to do the job. True, but as Labour scrapes the bottom more and more, it is finding it harder to find people who can do the job. In the months ahead of us, the situation will only get worse. And whilst a management crisis in some government cultural organisation might not ruffle many feathers, soon it will start hitting the bigger fish. We’ve already run Air Malta to the ground. If that can fall, anything can.
So who won in all of this? Well, no doubt the PL parliamentary group feels like they’ve kind of won, not least because in all of this they’ve remained as an anonymous mass and therefore minimised reputational damage, with one notable exception. That exception is of course Robert Abela. Ever since the infamous feud with Fearne, his second in command, during the COVID-crisis, Abela has increasingly run the show as a personality cult, trying hard to emulate his predecessor. One by one, all the ministers have faded into the background, each busy with their own little fiefdom.
All well and good, but for that to work you need to clock some substantial victories, and Abela has very little to show. The ‘great social reforms’ on cannabis and abortion ended up being unworkable messes that pleased no-one. His refusal to intervene on matters such as inflation and the property market crisis have continued to alienate voters. Even apparently swift actions on femicide and satire can ultimately be traced back to botched legal amendments pushed by his own government. And to that we can add a disastrous mobility policy (not only has the traffic problem not been solved, but we now have more cars and projects are going at an even slower rate), a weakened education system (with a quarter of O-level students failing a core subject), a farcical urban greening programme (reduced to revamping already existing green areas), and a general mistrust in political institutions (with over 90% of the population believing corruption to be widespread).
The result? Our lives are worse not better than ten years ago. It is harder for the younger generation to find a good job and afford a house, a plummeting birth rate, artificially inflated population to feed the economy on exploitative labour, deteriorating urban environments, an impoverished public sector as people seek employment elsewhere, and simmering disgruntlement and anger. And the image of a Prime Minister dismissing a grieving mother outside of Parliament, then going for an al fresco champagne concert, and then leave the island on his own personal cabin cruiser, has certainly not helped Abela’s cause. No wonder he was booed on Monday evening as he came out of Castille.
Some might argue that we, as citizens, can claim a victory. After all, wasn’t this the whole point to pressure the government into opening a public inquiry? In terms of achieving an objective, that is a decisive victory. But do remember that we should never be thankful for getting what is ours by right. Our politicians are there to serve us, not vice-versa. The change of heart only came when it was clear that Abela and his lot were facing a disaster of massive proportions, and not out of some noble ideological sentiment. Abela’s U-turn was in reality the lesser loss for him (and the party). That is no way to run a country. We deserve better.
This inquiry is one small step, but we are far from being out of the woods. Without the true separation of politics, private business, the judiciary, law enforcement, and personal careers, we will remain stuck in this rut. In short, we need a Second Republic – a new Constitution that not only enshrines these principles in clear terms, but also allow for the creation of proper enforcement bodies.
The conditions for this to happen are difficult. On the idealistic side, all the Parliamentary members could for once put their egos to one side and rewrite the constitution. At the other end of the spectrum is a new republic borne out of violence: a war, a revolt, an invasion. Or perhaps a natural cataclysm that upsets the current order. Not exactly appealing options.
Normally I would be rather sceptical about such changes, but the Vigil for Jean Paul Sofia was different. It was unlike Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, which was clouded by class and partisan hatred. It was even unlike the momentous protests of late 2019 that brought down Muscat. I cannot quite explain exactly what was different. Maybe I am mistaken…but somehow I feel that it was more than a building that came crashing down on that fateful day in December 2022.
MużiKartI 