The country has been in turmoil over the past months ever since the Panama Papers were revealed and the key minister in Joseph Muscat’s Cabinet turned out to be the only minister in the EU to be mentioned and to have a company in Panama.

The country has been rocked by the revelation and while the Opposition went on the warpath, tension in the country built up as the government media went into heavy damage limitation mode, firing off accusations right and left, at Ann Fenech, Beppe Fenech Adami and lately Mario de Marco.

Each of these would probably require an analysis on its own, so many were the issues these counter-attacks raised.

But the issue remained, even when people thought it had died down or that there was nothing more to be said.

The prime minister of Iceland resigned, then a Spanish minister, but Konrad Mizzi stayed on. The most he could bring himself to say was he left the matter in the hands of the prime minister.

The Prime Minister, on his part, tried to act suave and continued with his plans and programmes, even visiting the Middle East for a spot of salesmanship.

In the end, however, he was forced to face the situation. At first he faced it with all the lack of grace he could muster, especially when he ended up besieged by journalists who only wanted to know one thing – what was he doing about Konrad Mizzi – regardless what the event was about.

Then the Opposition held not one, but two, protests, one on his own doorstep. Then it asked for a vote of No Confidence in the minister and Parliament spent 13 hours engaged in contrasting diatribes, which solved nothing. Nor did the vote in the House, reflecting the government’s overriding majority, solve anything.

Ministers began speaking out against Konrad Mizzi and the situation was veering out of control.

That was when the Prime Minister was forced to step in. It is a measure of the panic that gripped the upper reaches of Castille.

The Prime Minister had held off saying he would decide only after the conclusions of an audit. Then he decided he could wait no longer, and he acted.

He had also said the audit was to be carried out by one international and reputable audit firm linked to no one in Malta. On 11 March, he said the name of this mysterious audit firm would be revealed ‘in days’ but a month and a half later we still do not know the name of this firm. And meanwhile Dr Muscat acted.

As we know, he acted on Thursday. Dr Mizzi said on Friday he had been the one to decide to resign from the deputy leadership of the party, thus implying that the decision to remove him from his ministerial portfolio had been taken by the Prime Minister, as he himself had asked him to do.

Let us stop the film here and analyse this. What compelled him to act when he did? It cannot be Parliament, nor the Opposition. It could only be the inner logic of the crisis unless it was – I am speculating here – because he received a warning from the EU’s highest quarters that with Malta having the presidency in just a few months, Konrad Mizzi would be ‘persona non grata’ in an EU that is fighting money laundering and corruption in all its forms. Dr Mizzi would be the completely wrong icon to project in Europe at this point.

The EU has been giving us enough signals in recent months to show its disapproval, perhaps even more than that, of some of Malta’s choices, especially when it came to the choosing of personnel. John Dalli was forced out of the Commission, the Chief Justice failed in his bid, and the former Labour Party deputy leader was summarily rejected. What Malta itself proved unable to do, the EU is making us do – as after all those of us who voted to join the EU wanted it to do.

Now remember I am speculating here. What would a normal leader who has been forced to take action do in such circumstances? He would at least decide not to repeat the mistake and take extra steps to prove he has learnt his lesson. If he were any better than that, he would try to understand where he had gone wrong and would build around him a new majority based on strict adherence to the rule of law, transparency and do anything in his power to repair the damage done to Malta’s image and to rebuild Malta’s good name for transparency and rule of law.

Instead, what did he do? I am saying he has repeated the mistakes that have brought so much grief and has even further complicated matters for himself and the government he leads. I am saying he could have excised Konrad Mizzi from a Cabinet portfolio without undergoing the Cabinet reshuffle that has resulted.

He focused on the expendables. Leo Brincat was a prime example: he dates back to Mintoff times, so in terms of the Moviment he was supremely expendable. As minister for the environment he was perhaps not in his right element, for he had been minister for finance and is generally well-read in that area; and he shadowed the foreign ministry and would have made a good foreign minister. Instead, as minister for the environment he has been struggling with a ministry with multiple problems, from the Mepa demerger to keeping WasteServ under control. He kept a low profile on the Konrad Mizzi case and comes across as a reasonable person one could deal with. So he was expendable and was kicked upstairs.

His replacement, Jose Herrera, is equally expendable. His area has always been the law, which he shadowed in Opposition, but he has been singularly successful in charge of the online gaming sector. Surrounded by a good team, he has led the sector from strength to strength. Now he has been summarily plucked from a sector he was getting to know and plunged into a sector he knows nothing about. Then, again, Jose Herrera had kept his head down in the Konrad Mizzi case.

His place has been taken by Manwel Mallia. As a practising lawyer, Dr Mallia knows the sector and many of the players well. If he were wise, he should sit back and let the sector continue to grow with the minimum of interference. But somehow I suspect this will not be the case. When he became minister for home affairs, Dr Mallia was mobbed by many who had been his clients when he visited the prison.

Apart from anything else, I argue, this was the wrong man to appoint at this time when Europe and the world are looking us over with a magnifying glass. We faced massive international scrutiny when Konrad Mizzi et al surfaced in the Panama Papers. The online gaming sector is a fast grower but equally a very sensitive sector of our economy with many rivals ready to pounce on our slightest mistake or perception of mistake.

As minister for the police and the armed forces, Dr Mallia did throw his weight (excuse the pun) around and decimated the top levels with very serious consequences. Online gaming is a private sector venture but it is even more sensitive, I argue, than the army or the police.

 

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