If a week is a long time in politics, 10 years is even longer and the last two years for Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, since the Panama Papers came crashing down on his government, must have been an eternity.
Exactly one year ago today Malta went to the polls in its snap general election driven by the ever-increasing fallout from the Panama Papers and the Pilatus Bank revelations. Since that election, which was called largely on the back of those two sore points, even more has emerged.
We have had the Daphne Project produce more documentation, in plain black and white, on what members of Muscat’s government apparently planned to do with their ill-gotten gains; and the owner of Pilatus Bank is facing 125 years in a US federal penitentiary for money laundering and evading sanctions.
And on Wednesday, Muscat will also mark his 10th year at the helm of the Labour Party, and what a ride it has been. Muscat, back in 2008 after a somewhat bitter internal leadership campaign, had promised an earthquake, and his government certainly delivered… just not in the way he meant.
On balance, there has been a lot of good, a lot of bad and a lot of ugly.
As far as civil liberties are concerned, Muscat has worked virtual miracles in what was formerly such a conservative country. From the introduction of divorce to a revision of the Church-State concordat on marriage annulments, and from the legislation of transgender rights, to same-sex marriage and to the decriminalisation of simple drug possession, Muscat has in many respects lived up to his ‘progressive’ label in an outstanding fashion.
And although one cannot agree with each and every policy of this government, in the area of civil rights it is heartening to see that this government is living up to its electoral pledges. As matters stand, one can also be proud to live in these times and to participate in modernizing this country’s civil rights.
As far as the economy is concerned, we appear to be thriving. Unemployment is at a historic low under Muscat and business, by all accounts is teeming. Now how much of that unemployment rate is accountable to a mushrooming public service is another question, and to what extent the economy is being buoyed by the country’s controversial citizenship sales is another.
Muscat can also be credited with having inspired a newfound environmental movement after so many people recoiled in horror when Muscat granted a Jordanian construction firm all that ODZ land in Marsascala for the American University of Malta. That movement was reinforced by the prospects of the mega-developments across St Julian’s and elsewhere.
Muscat can also be credited with what had previously been practically unthinkable – the introduction of a third party into Parliament, Partit Demokratiku, with the election of Marlene Farrugia, who had crossed the floor in the first of Muscat’s legislatures, and her partner Godfrey Farrugia, who left the Labour Party to run for PD.
Muscat can also be credited with having inspired the country’s activists to protest like they have never protested before in the wake of the Panama Papers tidal wave. And to his credit as a wily politician, he managed to pull the wool over so many eyes that he secured a second term with an even greater majority.
But one thing he has not managed is to unite the country. In fact, the divide has seemingly not been quite so wide since the 1980s.
And it is this that will be his real legacy decades down the road, but it is not too late to avoid that, to do the right thing and take the action that needed to be taken against those among his ranks who have sought personal profit from state wheelings and dealings.
And with Muscat having pledged to not recontest the next election, we are certain he has much more up his sleeve in store for the country before he bows out. Let us just hope that out of the good, the bad and the ugly that we have seen so far, that whatever he has left will be of the good ‘category’; we have certainly seen enough of the bad and the ugly.