The Prime Minister’s performance yesterday evening in parliament was disgraceful. Adopting a tone that can only be described as bitchy, he tossed spiteful remarks across the playground while standing at a safe distance with his mates, most of whom egged him on admiringly while a few others dragged their toes on the ground despondently. The fat boy – and every schoolyard gang has one – was for once not sneaking bites of sandwiches out of a paper bag. Instead he shouted that everyone was sick of hearing about Panama (their latest refrain).
It was a sorry scene, in which the Prime Minister accused the Opposition leader of muck-raking, digging dirt, and behaving shamefully and dishonestly in his reference to “documents” and “forms”. And once again, Muscat carefully avoided making reference to where those documents and forms came from (the Panama Papers) and what they’re about (Konrad Mizzi’s and Keith Schembri’s secret and suspicious dealings in Panama and New Zealand).
He made a meal out of whether his Special Minister had ticked a box or not (without mentioning the Special Minister or what form it was), and said nothing about whether he should have been ticking boxes on forms for trusts to hold shares in suspicious companies in Panama in the first place. The tone of his speech was cynical, nasty and offensive, and it will have struck completely the wrong note with his vast army of switchers, who are switching away from him in droves. Muscat forgets, or perhaps he never understood, that many of them voted for him because they thought he was a significant figure with moral authority. Now that he has been exposed as the enabler for two corrupt henchmen and a legion of opportunists in and out of politics, he has lost that moral authority and the last thing those switchers want to see now is a Prime Minister adopting the tone and attitude of a teenager fighting in Paceville when the gravity of the situation calls for seriousness.
The Prime Minister thinks that by adopting a suitably grave demeanour in this crisis, he will lose face. This is where the fact that he was raised on Dom Mintoff’s milk really comes through. There is nothing in his social background or his political and life experience to have taught him what the appropriate reaction, tone and facial expression should be when those closest to you, and therefore you too, are embroiled in a corruption crisis, with accusations of money-laundering and kickbacks, that has caused your government to be scrutinised by embassies, financial services operators, banks and other parties with a vested interest in avoiding having Malta sucked into a vortex of dirty money, corruption and lax attitudes.
The Prime Minister began his speech by saying disparagingly that the Opposition leader is good for nothing but repeating the things that “somebody writes for him on the internet” (read, the unmentionable Daphne). And he ended his speech by celebrating – yes, celebrating – the wonderful abilities of Keith Schembri and his bond with him. “Keith Schembri and I broke the Nationalist Party’s 25-year monopoly on power,” he shouted, to rousing cheers from the dunderheads on the benches behind him, his face a picture of malicious delight.
Are they all nuts? They are like religious zombies in some sect. Keith Schembri is at the centre of the scandal. His offshore dealings, all suspicious, all shady, all unexplained, through his companies in Panama, Gibraltar, Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands, are the subject of shocked discussion. And they celebrate him.
It is the first time that the Prime Minister has spoken of his tight bond with Schembri in public. He didn’t say much beyond that, but it was enough. It was a declaration of love, admiration and undying loyalty for his partner, and it explains why, in his statement to the press a few days ago, Schembri spoke as though he is the Prime Minister, with references to how the government will not be prevented in its work by all the accusations coming at it. The Prime Minister’s chief of staff should not speak that way. He is the Prime Minister’s bridesmaid and his job is to stand behind the Prime Minister and hold the train. But those two are a two-headed hydra.
It was unfortunate that in his haste to celebrate his chief of staff and his fabulous electoral achievements, the Prime Minister got the number wrong. Twenty-five years? Muscat should be the last person to forget about Prime Minister Alfred Sant, because the only reason he reached the top in the Labour Party is Alfred Sant and his personal assistant Michelle Tanti, who he courted and eventually married. In March 2013, the Nationalist Party had been in government for 14 years and five months, not 25 years. But it had been in government for three successive terms and would have lost even if the Labour Party had been led by a wig-wearing Martian. In fact, it had almost lost to Sant five years earlier.
The Prime Minister believes that Keith Schembri gave him his massive victory, and that’s why he is sticking by him in his corruption. But he’d better take care. Schembri might well the cause of the reversal of much of that. People are disgusted.
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