If we do make it through the Moneyval test, we will have done it by the skin of our teeth, seems to be how most positive commentators reason. In the words of some sage Maltese politician, “nirranġaw” (we’ll manage to cobble something).
And, as is our wont, we hobble on.
The parables or the spoofs we live in are all around us. The country is in dire straits. We have had – probably still have - the most corrupt government in living memory (or way beyond).
The party in government has had so many scandals, acts of corruption, and a diabolical cover-up in the murder of a journalist, that it should be enough to get the Labour Party banned for eternity as being too toxic for society.
The Labour Party is made up of corrupt people, people who facilitated corruption and appointed people to abet the miscarriage of justice.
Most Labour Party stooges looked away to let the corrupt, the corruption, the horrors, reign. They applauded while the wholesale looting of the country was – and is – going on. While the institutions were being turned into the regime’s lapdogs, the party stalwarts and minnows encouraged the authorities to continue destabilising true democracy.
Yet while all this is ongoing, while our entire country is being ripped apart, the opposition party slowly commits suicide. In a solemn way it has decided to be the nation’s only surviving relic of old stoic principles.
In some societies when someone does something dishonourable or fails they commit suicide.
The PN prided itself on embracing old values, and once these values were no more, the party seems to have decided to be no more.
So the totally dependable and never-say-die, Adrian Delia was given the joy of the party’s leadership. This ensured that the party, in a clever move steeped in honour, is totally disintegrating, imploding and racing towards annihilation.
The country has never needed a strong opposition as much as it does right now. Just when the people should be galvanised in opposing all the measures which limit our freedom and our democratic rights, the biggest party in opposition kills itself off.
While the opposition party dies, the country’s problems not only grow but multiply.
No test for which the EU will give us a pass mark will cure the problems which have now become scarily endemic.
Passing the Moneyval test will give us some brief respite. But the way forward should be a proper evaluation of all our problems, not just a superficial makeover.
Economically we might have started the long road to recovery from the Covid-19 tsunami. But is the economy still dependent on widespread and unmitigated building? Has our environment been put, if only very slightly, on the right path to recovery?
Has enough been done to check the air quality? Is our education system capable of producing leaders and movers who will ensure a future of sustainability? Is the way forward in tourism, iGaming, and the financial sector even connected to sustainability?
Does Air Malta have a future? Is our constitution worth saving? Have any scandals or obvious corruption cases even been properly investigated? Can the country afford the horrible Malta-Gozo tunnel? Are traffic, and its fumes, going to overwhelm us and has a real discussion towards a solution kicked off? Have parliamentarians and cabinet members who abused their positions or used funds illicitly been admonished or punished? Is our police force really being reformed and made truly independent?
Until all these questions are properly tackled, our country will hobble on in a state of precarious stifling, kept going on a respirator.
The Labour Party spokespeople, especially those pontificating on TVM and One, feel smug as they see the death of their main opponents on the PN ticket.
Far from being dealt a death blow, the Labour Party has been given a new lease of life. This is one of the biggest anomalies in local political history: whatever the Labour Party does it is nearly assured of victory at the polls. And the victory might be total and devastating if the electorate gives it a two thirds majority in the next legislature.
In the long-term all we are managing to do is keep the dam waters from bursting by temporarily cobbling a retaining wall. But the onslaught of the onrushing flood of problems will finally sweep away all walls, and we will be impotent to nirranġaw when the deathblow falls.
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