On Monday 11 March 2013, Joseph Muscat was sworn in as our Prime Minister.  In the run up to the last general election, and again very recently, Joseph Muscat vowed solemnly that if a new gas-fired power station wouldn’t have been up and running within two years of his government he would have resigned. 

Of course, there is no new gas fired power station and Joseph Muscat will not resign because by now everybody knows that his word is worthless and he does not mean what he says.  His credibility and trustworthiness are now officially defunct.  Joseph Muscat wishes he never uttered those words, but he did and as a learned scholar put it, “an honest man’s word is as good as his bond”.

Joseph Muscat made many other solemn promises, which he broke. From the very start he had vowed to switch the fabbrika tal-cancer (cancer factory referring to Delimara) from HFO to gas.  Did it happen? Of course not.  The list of broken promises is endless.  Is anybody keeping track of these broken promises? No, because it is now encoded in everyone’s subconscious, even in that of the staunchest Labour supporter, that Joseph Muscat’s word is worth nothing.  Like in a funeral, we are burying something that has been long dead.

Needless to say, Joseph Muscat and his advisors know this very well.  They are extremely competent and sophisticated marketing and communication strategists and they are aware that Joseph Muscat’s credibility is dead and buried.  What is the obvious thing to do? Kill his substitute, internal and external!

I had written weeks ago that we should expect three things in the run up to the coming local council elections: Firstly, a desperate attack on Simon Busuttil’s trustworthiness and credibility; secondly, a deceptive plea to the electorate’s subconscious to portray Simon Busuttil as a continuation of GonziPN; and third the strategic release of selected opinion polls to reinforce the perception that the Malta Labour Party will win the 11 April Local Council elections, and the next general elections, hands-down.  Let’s understand why each of these three strategies is crucial for Joseph Muscat.

Like every leader, Simon Busuttil has his shortcomings, his strengths and his weaknesses, but he is a principled man and he stands by his word.  He will never compromise on what is righteous and ethically just.  I know this through personal experience, and Joseph Muscat also knows this. Except he does not want you to know that he know this. Because in this way he would be giving credibility to the fact.  Joseph Muscat wants Simon Busuttil’s credibility to be buried together with his own.  The Malta Labour Party cannot afford for the electorate to realize that there is an honest and trustworthy alternative to Joseph Muscat, a prime minister in the making who is honest and reliable, and one who will not enter into questionable backroom deals with every lobby group imaginable, to the detriment of the common good, as long as it gives him power. 

Joseph Muscat needs you to see Simon Busuttil as unreliable and dishonest as he himself feels.  As long as you believe this, you have no alternative, so it doesn’t matter how Joseph Muscat behaves.

Simon Busuttil may be relatively new to local politics and may have started from an unenviable position, but he owes nothing to no-one and has no legacy issues.  The Malta Labour Party needs everybody to believe that Lawrence Gonzi and Austin Gatt are running the show behind the scene and that he is their puppet on a string.  The more people realize that this is fiction and that Simon Busuttil is really as genuine and clean as he looks, the faster will the electorate realize that there is a real alternative to Joseph Muscat.  Joseph Muscat himself knows this is his biggest threat, so he will do everything to prevent this (new PN) frame of mind from taking hold.  Expect to hear this ‘Simon is not new’ theme to be thrown at you over and over again, every day, in every article, in every speech, in every interview, in every debate, until either of two things happen; fiction becomes reality or the electorate rejects the fiction.  In the meantime, every time you hear it, think about what Joseph Muscat is really trying to achieve.

It has been scientifically proven that opinion polls and survey results actually shape the electorate’s opinion and create self-fulfilling prophecies.  Joseph Muscat knows this very well, and he has used this tool effectively and cynically.  Have you realized that when Joseph Muscat, or his nominees, fumble in yet another blunder, or when Simon Busuttil makes a stronger impact than usual, we get the release of a timely survey or opinion poll that tells us that the sample consider Joseph Muscat to be more credible than Simon Busuttil and that Simon is still failing to make any inroads or gaining ground with the electorate?  Human psychology needs to conform and such a survey result will neutralize the true feelings of betrayal and disappointment within the electorate.  Next time a survey result is released, question the timing, and relate what issues were topical at the time of the survey.  This tool has another important function.  As long as the electorate takes it for granted that the PN has no chance to win the next general election, it will suffer in silence, and bear the unacceptable behavior of Joseph Muscat and the Malta Labour Party.

I’ve heard many people ask what would have happened if the things we are witnessing under Joseph Muscat happened under a PN government.  Well, before March 2013 people did not see it farfetched that the Malta Labour Party would have won the next general election, we had Xarabank and Bondi+ in inquisition mode on the PN in government week in week out, but most importantly, anybody could stand up on Friday evening, prime time, live on national TV and criticize ferociously the Prime Minister of the time and his government with absolutely no risk of personal vendetta from the government of the day.  This was a time when everyone was free to speak his mind.  Do you see this happening now? Of course not, and Joseph Muscat knows that until the electorate believes that the PN does not stand a chance of winning the next elections, he can do what he wants knowing that everybody will take it lying down.  Joseph Muscat is cocky in the face of his blunders and lies, and exudes confidence.  From his perspective, it’s important that you believe that whatever he does he’s there to stay, whether you like it or not, because the sample is telling you that you’re an outlier, that you are alone in your disapproval, that something’s wrong with you, and that you’d better shut up and get on with it because if you disapprove of Joseph Muscat you will be on the losing side.

During this week’s funeral don’t allow Joseph Muscat to bury your intelligence together with his credibility.