The four-week snap electoral campaign comes to an end today. People have had the opportunity to analyse and ponder on the stakes in this Saturday’s ballot contest. One dominant issue of concern remained on people’s minds throughout the campaign: corruption.

Both parties have showered voters with attractive proposals, but there is one very important electoral pledge which is coming only from one side of the divide: the removal of corrupt practices from the highest echelons of power.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is responsible for calling an election one year ahead of its time. The country’s economy was blossoming. Though no major investment was attracted to the island during the past four years, the sectors inherited by this administration from Lawrence Gonzi’s economically shrewd but politically weak government continued to bear fruit. That momentum would not have been stopped had the Prime Minister lived up to his ‘Malta Tagħna Lkoll’ 2013 electoral promise and sacked his Chief of Staff Keith Schembri and Energy and Health Minister Konrad Mizzi the moment the Panama Papers revealed that they had set up secret companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands.

So much evidence and proof of their dealings came out in the span of a year, including the attempts to open bank accounts in which they promised to deposit at least one million euros each year. They never cared to explain how they intended to inject that much money from the salaries they each have as Minister and Chief of Staff. Yet the Prime Minister continued to defend his two closest allies while forgetting all those who worked with him in the past four years to generate the economic success he so fondly boasts about.

Cabinet ministers, Labour Party officials and supporters yearn to see these two politically exposed persons who are mired in corruption allegations out of the picture so they can continue to build on their vision for the country. Yet by now they know that their stubborn leader is hell bent on keeping these two on his team. This farce has sowed doubt in their minds: if Schembri and Mizzi are implicated in corruption then why not the Prime Minister himself? Why does he keep defending them following the four damning Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) reports leaked to the independent media?

Let us not forget that the FIAU investigated Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi on revelations of kickbacks for the sale of citizenship. 

Let’s also not forget that another FIAU investigation found that money was successfully transferred in the two secret companies opened for Schembri and Mizzi via Dubai based company 17 Black, opened solely to be able to facilitate such transfers from the owners of the LNG tanker now situated in Marsaxlokk Bay, and possibly from the privatisation of Enemalta. NexiaBT was also responsible in opening a secret company in Panama to Cheng Chen, the Chinese negotiator for the privatisation of Enemalta.

The mounting evidence and FIAU reports leaked to this newspaper, and other media, led to four (possibly five) magisterial inquiries in four weeks. All four magistrates are investigating Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri for money laundering and corruption while another is also investigating revelations by a whistle blower who worked at Pilatus Bank that the third Panamanian company, opened in secrecy by NexiaBT, is ultimately owned by none other than the Prime Minister’s wife Michelle Muscat.

The Prime Minister has denied this throughout the campaign and even pledged to resign the moment it is established that Egrant Inc belongs to him or his family. But the Prime Minister needn’t promise to resign over Egrant should he return to power this Sunday, because no one can believe such a pledge when he had the power to sack two of his closest political friends but failed to do so. Instead, he plodded along with them, defended them and ultimately called an election to try and save his and their skin.

During the past year, but most prominently in the past month, the Prime Minister avoided one-on-one interviews by the independent news platforms. This was a first, especially for a leader who courted the press heavily in the 2013 campaign. He ignored our repeated calls to appear on the INDEPTH series on independent.com.mt, he refused to go on the Broadcasting Authority’s press conference, he declined interviews with The Malta Independent on Sunday and with The Sunday Times newspapers and he refused to go on RTK and newsbook.com. The only interview he went to was on Malta Today Managing Editor Saviour Balzan’s show, where an Aperol-spritz or a Martini were the only missing props between two buddies sitting comfortably in each other’s company, chit-chatting and tickling each other until the time was up and viewers were left none the wiser.

The Muscat government has been at war with sections of the independent media ever since the Panama Papers emerged. They loath freethinking journalists who dare stand up to their tactics. They tried to shut us up with subtle threats, they reduced the government’s advertising budget in sections of the media that criticised them, and they tried to dangle fat contracts in an attempt to buy us out, but when all of this didn’t stop the independent media from pointing out the hard facts, the spindoctors in Castile challenged our independence.

This newspaper has no affiliations with any political party and prides itself in being on the right side of history each time the national interest was at stake. We stood by Eddie Fenech Adami in favour of EU membership. We shared Lawrence Gonzi’s determination to join the euro and we stood with Joseph Muscat in favour of divorce and lauded his efforts to introduce civil liberties. Now we feel we have to stand with Simon Busuttil and Marlene Farrugia against corruption.

Being independent does not make us indifferent. On Saturday 3rd June we urge the Maltese to vote corruption out.