The Prime Minister said a few words at the beginning of the debate on Zonqor and then left for, what to him were more important matters, including sleep.

Simon Busuttil, on the other hand, gave each and every one of us his full undivided attention, thanking us and encouraging us throughout the long night.

It turned out to be the longest parliamentary session in Maltese history. The session started at 6pm on Tuesday evening and ended after 9am on Wednesday. Over fifteen hours of debating about the Zonqor university that wasn’t. Wasn’t this, wasn’t that, wasn’t anything that had been promised. A constant struggle to fight fatigue and keep the ongoing debate lucid.

At no time was there the illusion or aspiration that the final vote would be won by the PN Opposition but our strategy was perseverance. We wanted to make the point that we strongly believe Muscat is very wrong in his decision to give away the ODZ Zonqor Point land the way he has.

Our drive was fuelled by the knowledge that we are not the only people opposing the horrid decision. We also knew that, once again, Muscat and the PL MPs would be driven by a strong sense of arrogance that they know what’s best (for themselves, anyway) and that there would be no way that they would give in to our appeals.

All this made us more resolute and determined to drive home our message.

Our objections were, and still are, the following.

(1) The Environment: Why Zonqor? This project could have easily developed in any other place which is not an ODZ 18,000m2 piece of land by the sea.

Even worse, MEPA actually recommended other sites and options, all in the south of Malta and all covering the government’s requirements, particularly in Tarxien.

Various NGOs and social partners have expressed their disdain at the government for failing to protect the environment. It is totally illogical as to why Muscat would continue to persevere further on this road – unless of course there are other reasons.

(2) The Investment: Is the investor financially sound enough to take on this project? How and why was Hani Hasan Naji Al Salah chosen? There was no call for expressions of interest. Not even in the local papers.

During the debate it was made amply clear (particularly by the astute and able Francis Zammit Dimech) that Sadeen’s company is worth some one million euros but will be taking on a project which needs them to generate over one hundred million in investment. Who is going to guarantee this investment?

For banks to provide the necessary funding, the government is probably going to end up intervening. This could be another situation similar to the new power station project.

Maltese investors must be furious. Several of them could have taken on this project had they had the chance to bid for it. Sadeen is basically a contractor and owns a 90-room hotel.

Some members of the government side tried to convince us that not only do we need this investment, but they made the surreal and absurd comparison between Sadeen and Microsoft, HSBC and Tecom investments.

(3) The “University”: When this project was first made public, it was “sold” to us as the American University of Malta. A legal notice was passed, almost secretively, to lower the level of requirements for an educational institution to become a university.

Lo and behold, on Tuesday evening, when Minister Evarist Bartolo introduced the hot debate ahead, he revealed (as though he was not dropping a bombshell at all) that this university is, in fact, not going to be a university at all.

Not only that, he also declared that the investors (who have absolutely no experience whatsoever in the higher education sector) will NOT be applying for a university license but will be opting to become an “Institute of Higher Education”.

The parliamentary debate is now over. Muscat will now obstinately go ahead as planned. People will discuss this over Christmas and, as Michael Briguglio put it in a tweet, “Malta’s civil society will not forget Labour’s sell-out of the common good and public domain.”

Since this column will not be published next week, I would like to wish all the readers a healthy and serene Christmas.