Doubtlessly the ongoing cabinet-salary-raise-saga continues to haunt the Prime Minister and his cabinet. It simply won’t go despite Dr Gonzi’s frantic efforts to declare the matter closed. The more he tries to put the lid on the boiling cauldron of popular discontent the more he comes out as outright arrogant, pompous and dismissive of public opinion.

He has become a symptom of an aged administration showing not only fissures of discord but rather canyons of apartheid within its own ranks.

Needless to mention that the government already lost a vote in parliament a couple of weeks ago because of internal dissent on the matter of divorce, and now risks the same fate on a motion presented by the opposition relating to the cabinet salary when it is debated soon in parliament. A fistful of government MPs have already declared they are not yet committed to vote with the government.

A couple of months ago it was revealed that Dr Gonzi and his ministers and parliamentary secretaries had awarded themselves a weekly raise of €500 since 2008. They had decided so in secret and they were receiving their generous raises by stealth while taxpayers, already heavily under siege of unprecedented austerity measures, got a miserly weekly raise of just above a euro, which immediately fizzled into nothingness as soon as the increase in the excise tax on fuels came into force at the last budget.

Just to make sure that no one will catch wind of the raise in their own salaries the cabinet also decided not to raise the leader of the opposition’s salary as was customary. They wanted to keep the raise so much under wraps that they went as far as to deny the leader of the opposition what would have been his rightful raise had he opted to accept it, which he did not for reasons I need not repeat.

Now it has also been revealed that on top of their salary and the controversial raise which they awarded to themselves, they have been receiving another €6,000 euro for ‘duty’ - as if their salary and the astronomical raise were already not being paid in compensation for services rendered. Their behaviour has greed written all over it.

In the meantime John Citizen has to face extraordinary increases in the prices of petrol, diesel, gas and other essentials, with the cost of living spiralling out of control because of government induced costs and because of government’s reluctance to help families, thus seriously undermining the government’s social commitment towards the country. This has become, beyond any doubt, a government fleeing from the centre towards the right of the political spectrum where right is might.

No wonder Dr Gonzi and his ministers are simply unable to identify themselves with problems faced by ordinary families, preferring to find solace in the advice of the blue-eyed fat cats who have amassed fortunes thanks to their good relations with the Nationalist Party, and who are obviously immune to the pinches of any austerity measures.

I might pass as a biased politician from the opposition benches, so I will say no more and leave it up to PN exponents to say their own on this matter. Considering that some government MPs have been very critical of the way government has been handling this matter and in view of the sheer arrogance demonstrated by the Prime Minister as he carries on ploughing through public opinion unashamedly, without showing any sign that he will come down from his high horse and start connecting with general sentiment, his party‘s credibility continues to erode.

He might still believe that he can win the next general election by the same whisker of the last one. He might also have a trump card down his sleeve to use closer to the elections, like throwing money at people at the expense of the public exchequer. But now the electorate has understood that any manna coming from heaven before the elections will always have to be paid back more sooner than later in the form of taxes and interest.

The mascara of the GonziPN make-up has worn-off.