Joe Cassar, a successful psychiatrist in private practice and former parliamentary secretary and later Minister for Health in the Gonzi administration was the only one out of that Cabinet who voted for Simon Busuttil in the PN leadership stakes.

Yesterday his world tumbled around his ears as revelations surfaced in the media about deals which involved Joe Gaffarena who apparently turned fairy godmother for Joe Cassar, forking out €8000 for construction works at Cassar’s farmhouse in Dingli, gave him a heavily discounted car for his daughter and paid for a security system for the house.

Now there is the issue of whether he should have declared such gifts (he denies this) but an even more important issue points out that these gifts apparently took place when Gaffarena was lobbying to get a permit for the petrol station he had built on the outskirts of Qormi without a permit. As a member of Cabinet it is highly probable that Dr Cassar knew of the efforts Gaffarena was making to get the permit.

Party leader Simon Busuttil was thus more than correct when he said yesterday that Dr Cassar is guilty of an ‘error of judgment’ and this was said even before Dr Busuttil had a chance to meet Dr Cassar.

That, and subsequent statements by the Nationalist Party and its leader are examples of damage limitation once the mud hit the proverbial fan.

An error of judgment is precisely what a politician is not supposed to make for that is what the public put him there to avoid. To now minimize what was done is to distort the public appreciation of the gravity of what was done.

In this case, if all the allegations are true, we have a politician deriving personal gain – a house restored, a car, a security system. We do not have to have proof that in exchange Dr Cassar used or tried to use his influence to help his friend get the all-important Mepa permit. Such gifts were not innocent at all, especially at such a time. After all, a minister in the same Cabinet was pilloried for months and years for just one gift of an artisanal Arlogg tal-Lira.

Dr Cassar then compounded his error of judgment by exhibiting sheer panic when the Gaffarena scandal erupted and he must have realized how exposed he was. He claimed, last week, he was the victim of blackmail which to date he has not specified what he was being blackmailed about. His story made little sense then, and makes even less sense now.

He has now humiliated his own party leader, who he as one of the first voters for him, should have avoided at all costs. From Thursday to yesterday he does not seem to have informed the leader of all the circumstances about the allegations and all the skeletons in the cupboard, thus leaving the leader to say on Saturday he ‘vouches’ for Dr Cassar’s integrity.

Dr Cassar has now resigned from the Opposition front bench. One hesitates to say whether this is enough or whether he should have resigned from Parliament outright but the loss of face is such that in a way make this immaterial. The damage has been done, and not just to Dr Cassar’s fame.

It is true however that this is only one part of the whole story. The other part, that regarding the Old Mint Street house scandal, is still resisting such a neat outcome. The prime minister and Labour Party leader is still resisting any action on the involvement of Parliamentary Secretary Michael Falzon on this issue. And of course, despite outlays such as house restoration, car and security system, Gaffarena did not get his petrol station licensed while he got that, quite handily, from the Labour administration.

It is a pity to see Dr Cassar go like that – he is a nice man, a gentleman, and his patients can vouch for his bedside manners. But in the cut-throat business that is politics in Malta such personal traits are not what is required from politicians. From these, one requires nerves of steel and a visceral opposition to anything that can be construed, at one time or another, as a bribe, an inducement even if that time it may appear as puny and insignificant.

Faced with all these claims and counterclaims, a Maltese citizen is justly asking who can be trusted to stay blameless?