Never have I ever come across so many Nationalist friends and constituents who have been so openly bad mouthing (politically) their party leader for the political ineptitude, hard headedness and endless tactical

and strategic miscalculations that

he has made in

recent months

This was also echoed in articles written by various independent correspondents last Sunday. It is bad enough for politicians to appear to be in denial.

But it is even worse when they seem to have fallen victim to their own spin. 

Last week, I actually came across PN supporters who blamed the Prime Minister indirectly for Richard Cachia Caruana’s political downfall, particularly for the manner in which he has mishandled the whole parliamentary procedures. Particularly when he chose to offer hostages to fortune by opening up what was originally intended as a simple single parliamentary plenary session into a full blown endless series of meetings of the FAEC where so many telling documents came to light; where Mr Cachia Caruana found himself most reluctantly and nervously under the political spotlight – something he is reported to detest with a passion – while the PM himself came across as being so unprepared that what started off as the submission of an ostensibly comprehensive dossier ended up being added to all along, throughout the process, thus exposing the fact that what was meant to be comprehensive was after all not comprehensive at all.

But this might be only a symptom of the manner in which GonziPN has played its cards badly, even more so in recent months when it’s political meltdown started gaining momentum.

Although every effort seems to have been made by certain RCC-friendly media to gag the PL’s public response to GonziPN’s political miscalculations on this saga, Gonzi’s most glaring mistake must have been that of last week when he continued to show further disdain towards Parliament as an institution, rather than towards the PL itself – by publishing on the eve of an already announced parliamentary question, his take on RCC’s financial package. Possibly in order to try and get away with only a partial reply while once again avoiding parliamentary scrutiny. And further embarrassment on the whole issue.

But it so happens that for certain media RCC and Austin Gatt are both untouchables too! See how a particular newspaper played down Transport Malta’s ‘egg on its face’ situation regarding both the PL billboard removals and the recent case where a constitutional application ruled against their decision to impede a particular company from making use of its open-topped buses.

But back to the RCC saga. I can easily see what GonziPN could have had in mind in doing so.

While trying to give the impression that he was giving the public the full details on RCC’s financial package by publishing an urgent DOI statement at 8pm, literally on the eve of the relevant parliamentary questions’ submissions in Parliament, in actual fact he seems to have deliberately refrained from addressing these very important issues.

He showed that on the RCC financial package issue he was dragging his feet even more than he did in trying to delay the publication of the full details of the atrocious ministerial increase that he had covertly given to himself and his Cabinet earlier on during this legislature.

He contradicted himself by first claiming that RCC was paid as a normal civil servant only to later claim that he was given special remuneration since he was paid for two jobs – that of a politically appointed permanent rep and also as an adviser to the PM. The mind boggles as to why he chose to give such conflicting versions over more than a two-year period.

In his reply, the PM once again refrained from costing the total bill that the exchequer was paying in order to cover all expenses related to RCC’s stint in Brussels, including a possible luxury duplex in which he reportedly spends only a couple of nights a week due to his regular visits to Malta.

Government once again – or rather the PM – chose to hold back from publishing RCC’s contracts – both in their original form, as well as how possibly amended or changed over the years.

It remains somewhat strange that he has been serving as permanent rep since 2004 and yet his contract (or rather latest contract) seems to have been dated 2009. Why were such changes carried out if at all, and what was the true motivation behind them?

Why were the Foreign Ministry Forms 1 that all diplomats serving abroad have drawn up by the said Ministry not been tabled as requested? Even more so on a comparative basis between 2007 and the present.

The PM also used his partial reply through the DOI to avoid addressing another direct question that I had asked – as to whether Mr Cachia Caruana had received any arrears payments in recent years, how much did they add up to, and what did they represent?

In addition to all this, the PM had once gone on record claiming that Mr Cachia Caruana who sits in on certain Cabinet meetings could also be entitled to the equivalent of ministerial terminal benefits and transitional facility payments should his contract be terminated or else should there be a change in minister.

Thanks to Gonzi’s ineptitude about which I understand some of RCC’s groupies have been fuming badly, we now have two confirmations rather than one. 

That contrary to the spin, knowingly spun by certain editorialists very close to RCC, he is no ordinary civil servant. On the contrary he was never a civil servant at all.

Thanks to the PM’s long drawn out reply we now have confirmation of the point I tried to make in committee – that he seems to be far more than just a first among equals. Something others dismissed wrongly as character assassination.

And what is worse is that the way in which GonziPN replied, merely served to confirm that GonziPN has been hiding the full disclosure of the RCC financial package for a number of years.

All this could implicitly suggest what we suspected all along.

That he who is rightly or wrongly known as the power behind the throne was financially rewarded as the power behind the throne.

Had GonziPN been in denial on this issue alone one could understand it since some people prefer to be perceived as untouchables, even at the expense of sacrificing transparency and accountability.

But in the past weeks we have seen government in freefall on most fronts.

In the EP we had Nationalist MPs first rooting for a postponement of the ACTA vote only to end up voting alongside those who opposed ACTA when only months earlier they were strongly supportive of it. The same way the conservatives within the EPP Group were.

Closer to home we have been hearing from various sources that a number of ministries are pushing hard to finalise projects originally meant for October ideally by August or thereabouts.

We also had U-turns on questions of policy, including the recent feasibility study to convert the HFO-fuelled power plant extension to gas.

While only until recently the Housing Authority seemed to have subjected itself to government policy to refrain from offering any government property for sale, I have seen letters written by the Housing Authority CEO addressed to ‘The Resident’, in government apartments who are being invited to attend briefing meetings by HA officials in their area should they be interested in considering buying their own residence or apartment. It seems that the scheme Sir sid ta’ darek is being applied to residents in St Julian’s, San Ġwann and Ta’ Xbiex housing estate.

All this goes to prove that while disunity continues to prevail within PN ranks, and frontrunners continue lamenting the blood letting and bleeding going on within their own party, the PN’s strategists seem to be hardly making any inroads as they had originally hoped to do.

So much so that Joseph Muscat’s words that delaying the elections further could prove to be counter-productive for the PN might in the long run turn out to be prophetic after all!

Someone seems to have hit the panic button and there now seems to be either no way out or no looking back. Or both.