The investigation carried out by the Malta Independent on Sunday about the hidden Swiss accounts of some of our politicians was a political shock. There is no doubt that many of us believe that politicians or ex-politicians have hidden foreign accounts but it is another fact when such presumptions are proven to be true. Perhaps, the PN activists should hold their breath as from what is being reported by the Malta Independent, more high profile PN deputies have secret foreign accounts. But for now, let me focus on Mr Michael Falzon and Mr Ninu Zammit.
These two ex-PN ministers admitted to have had undeclared accounts in Switzerland. Incidentally, both politicians were behind the building of the Marsaxlokk power station in the late 1980s. But this is beyond the point of my analysis, even if the media somehow sought to covertly link Mr Zammit with the oil scandal revealed on the eve of the last election.
In my opinion, the political shock is not much related to the oil scandal per se but due to the fact that one of the two implied in this affair has made it his mission to speak about political righteousness. I am here referring to Mr Michael Falzon. He got even positions of trust, both within the Nationalist Party and with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. This is very rare in Malta. Few politicians got a concurrent position of trust with the two main political leaders.
Thus, I don't think that the revelation that Mr Ninu Zammit’s account in Switzerland will cause political damage to the Nationalist Party. Zammit has graciously moved out of politics. Therefore such a revelation will not harm the perception of the PN with its electorate. The proof of what I am saying is in the reaction of the blogs. Those commenting were mostly interested in Mr Michael Falzon.
This is understandable. Some Nationalists have not forgiven him for his anti-Gonzi stand between 2008-2013. In this period, he shared a common front with the Opposition Leader in criticizing the PN Government. During the last electoral campaign, Mr Falzon appeared at a meeting with Dr Joseph Muscat. Once Labour won the election, Dr Muscat considered Falzon as a person of trust and put him on the Oil Procurement Committee. This was interpreted by many as a political reward.
At the same time, once Dr Simon Busuttil took office, he started the process of rehabilitating Mr Falzon into the party. I am sure that this was done following the wrong diagnosis made by the party's strategists that the PN lost its last general election because of its stand on divorce. Mr Falzon is one of the key figures for the introduction of divorce in Malta and having him back in the party was seen as an opportunity to entice the so called Liberal voters to return back to the PN. However, the PN did not realize that such a move was going to irritate the rank and file of the party, whose loyalty to the party was unconditional even during difficult times.
Thus, when I questioned why a person who did so much harm to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was being given positions of trust within the party, and according to the Malta Independent, he even found a place in the Executive Council, I was severely reproached. I realized that there was a group within the party that was working to have this old clique, which Dr Gonzi sought to keep at bay, back into the Party’s fold.
As Mr Falzon was brought back into the party, all his recent past support to Joseph Muscat was obliterated and forgotten. The media is rightly describing him as an ex-PN minister. If he had been kept outside the party structures, the PN would have been spared from facing a new political backlash. At least, the PN would have been in a position to say that Mr Falzon is no longer part of the PN structures. Finally, it was Falzon’s unilateral decision to leave the party, after which he embraced Muscat’s political movement. Thus, this story would have been associated with Labour. Dr Muscat’s tweet in support of Mr Michael Falzon confirms such an association. Now the PN is on its own to suffer the political consequences.
For this reason, Mr Michael Falzon is once again a political liability for the PN, as he was between 1987 and 1996. Despite all the negative criticism written and said about him by the Labour media between 1987 and 1996, Falzon succeeded to make a comeback and started to stand for moral high ground. He attacked Lawrence Gonzi that his leadership had lost the PN its high moral ground. Once he returned into the PN folds, he levelled the same criticism against Dr Joseph Muscat. Now, these revelations havdented MrFalzon’s aim to rebuild a political identity.
One needs to acknowledge that Mr Falzon sought to minimize the political damage that this piece of news caused to his image by taking the preemptive move of admitting, before the news itself appeared in the press, that he had had a secret account in Switzerland but insisted that this does not exist any longer. He also auto suspended himself from the PN and from the Government’sOil ProcurementCommittee. However, this declaration will come back to haunt him, as it seems that he has undeclared funds, about which, he declined to give any information.
On his part, Dr Simon Busuttil took the decision to exclude from the party all individuals who possess illegalaccounts. The party could have preempted all the damage caused by showing more political acumen by keepingat bay those cliques, whose only interest in politics is their personal gain and certainly not Malta’s future.