The word ‘scandal’ doesn’t quite fit, but I am at a loss to work out what else to call the stories that are breaking on a daily basis. Calling them scandals implies that people are scandalised, because that is what a scandal is – something that scandalises people. Yet people are not scandalised. They are not immune or indifferent, either. But when you feel helpless in the face of the onslaught, and when you know that nothing you do or say can change things for the next two years at least, because those in power now appear to be completely indifferent to public opinion, then you preserve your sanity and peace of mind by trying not to get too upset about it. That’s how people are coping.

It is also too much to take in. Can those in power be that corrupt and that brazen about it? Can they really lie to the electorate so blatantly and with no sense of shame? Can it all really be happening, or are we missing some part of the jigsaw puzzle that will make it come all right in the end? Many people are now reading the news with a growing sense of disbelief. Stories which, had this been a Nationalist government, would have made major headlines and had people raging for months are now brushed aside and forgotten as something petty and minor as far worse emerges. Even our conception of ‘far worse’ has shifted enormously. The information that the Transport Minister is paying his friend and architect, Chris Cachia, €120,000 a year in consultancy fees – the fee was published in the Government Gazette along with the usual list of consultancies, retainers and direct orders – drifted past almost unnoticed as the Big Lie emerged and took everybody by surprise, including some members of the government, judging by the looks on their faces. There was never going to be an American University of Malta, because the law does not allow university accreditation for something that does not even exist. University accreditation will only be considered for institutes of higher education that already have a significant track record. This means that even while the Office of the Prime Minister permitted Hani Hasan Naji Al Salah to sponsor the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and plaster the fictitious American University of Malta’s logo all over the shop, they knew there could be no American University of Malta.

People are still trying to get past that one: the sudden revelation that a brazen piece of political fraud was used to persuade the electorate that giving this Jordanian builder a good piece of coastal land is a good idea and absolutely essential because “the south” needs a university and this means investment. The dawning realisation that “the American University of Malta” could well have been an elaborate piece of fiction with the sole end-purpose of facilitating the transfer of Outside Development Zone public land to a contractor from Jordan is a truly disturbing one.

I listen to David Thake’s show on Radio 101 regularly. I like the way he speaks and I especially like his irreverent approach to Big Cheeses, which is such a relief from the two weird Maltese extremes of offensive rudeness and reverence. Almost every afternoon at least one person is bound to ring him when calls are live to chant “Sitta u tletin elf, sitta u tletin elf…”. Almost three years into this particular game, they sound like voices from another planet. The euphoria of a 36,000 electoral majority is long since gone and forgotten. It could have happened in another life, so far away does it now seem. The awe with which people spoke in the aftermath of that has slowly and then increasingly rapidly segued into disgust. Labour still has a comfortable majority, but I’d hazard a guess that at least two-thirds of those 36,000 have evaporated. There is a very telling sign: nobody speaks in favour of the Labour government (except the obvious suspects), but nobody speaks against it either, except when they know beyond doubt that they are in like-minded company. Given that everybody knows for a fact where I stand on the matter, the people who would ordinarily be silent or pretend to be indifferent will then offload when they find themselves alone with me. And I mean offload; they are quite clearly venting, getting things off their chest, rather than telling me the kind of things they believe I wish to hear. They say it because they need to say it.

Michelle Muscat is making the most of it while Sandro Chetcuti and his friends make hay while the sun shines. All that people out here can see right now is Labour cronies taking, grabbing and snatching, filling their pockets and then some, raiding the shop for as much as they can before it all runs out or they’re voted out. It’s not a good look at all, and what makes it so much worse is the image the Labour Party projected before the last general election, and especially during its campaign, raising the expectations of people who then began to realise that it was nothing but the perpetration of a massive fraud designed to secure power for what appear to be devious ends.

www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com