Michael Falzon’s irate tirade against the Auditor-General, his office and those who work for it was unedifying – but worse than that, it was dangerous to democracy. This might not be immediately evident to those who will go into paroxysms of rage only when politicians do something bad which they can immediately understand – like take a corrupt gift in physical form (holidays and gifts in kind apparently don’t count) – and that is another reason why the situation is so dangerous.
Politicians who discount democracy and who ride roughshod over institutions, seeking to intimidate individuals, threaten them or expose them to the rage of their supporters by naming them and publishing their photographs, can do it only because they are like great swathes of the electorate: indifferent to democracy and what it means outside a general election once every five years. Put simply, politicians like Michael Falzon, his boss and his party colleagues get away with their abusive behaviour because the electorate thinks no differently, and because those who do think differently decide they had better keep quiet about it.
Falzon flew into a rage because he did not like the contents of the Auditor-General’s report which followed an investigation into how Falzon’s office – when he was Parliamentary Secretary for Lands – handled the expropriation of part of a Valletta house, owned by Mark Gaffarena, allowing him to handpick €1.6 million worth of state-owned real estate in exchange. Falzon resigned his position, clearly after much horse-trading with his boss the Prime Minister, then promptly paraded himself as a martyr on prime-time state television, Facebook, in interviews and most notably at a special event which the Labour Party organised in his support at an old theatre in Gzira, with Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando conspicuous in the front row alongside that other unsavoury character, Karl Stagno Navarra.
It then emerged that he had been put back on the state payroll, secretly, as a ‘consultant’ to the Grand Harbour Regeneration Corporation, and when the press found out about it, Falzon did not even have the basic decency or good sense to answer politely. Instead he became aggressive and defensive, saying to journalists “Don’t I have a right to feed my family?” Aside from the primitive idiom – who talks in those terms nowadays except those who live in the most backward societies? – he seems to think that using his power in the government to snatch as much as he can off the gravy-train is his “right” and that it constitutes “feeding his family”. Aside from the fact that Falzon is 55 or 56, and therefore his children are more than capable of working and “feeding” themselves, his wife is a capable woman who doesn’t need him to feed her either. But that’s not the point here.
The point is Falzon’s bad attitude and his undemocratic outlook. His ranting and raving about the Auditor-General and individual employees in the National Audit Office left me in no doubt that his mentality is no different to Recep Tayyep Erdogan’s when it comes to respect for institutions, those who hold them, the separation of powers, and understanding that people in power should not launch assaults on the institutions that safeguard democracy. I was left thinking that if Falzon had Erdogan’s power, he would have fired the Auditor-General, chased his employees out of the building and, possibly, into prison, and enjoyed every minute of it while believing himself perfectly justified.
The Prime Minister’s defence of Falzon did nothing to reassure me that my perception is wrong. Fear of prime ministerial censure or displeasure did not stop Falzon from saying what he did about the National Audit Office, not because he is a brave man, but because he knew there would be none. Muscat did not even have the decency to acknowledge that some sensible people might perhaps be upset by seeing a powerful member of the government – for Falzon remains very obviously a member of the government even though he is not in the cabinet – seek to intimidate and threaten the Auditor-General. Instead he stuck up for Falzon and sought to justify his behaviour, showing that his loyalty lies with Falzon and not with the institutions that keep this country safe.
The growing realisation is frightening that what we have here is a government of tinpot Erdogans who are prevented from becoming full-on Erdogans only by the fact that Malta, unlike Turkey, belongs to the European Union. But they are committed to doing what they can within the constraints placed on them.
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