Trust Labour to repeat the same mistake.
In 1992, when the party was about to elect its new leader, an anonymous report found its way to Il-Gens, the Church’s paper, containing allegations against Lino Spiteri, one of the candidates.
The allegation was refuted but Mr Spiteri lost the battle.
This time, just a few hours before the Labour delegates were to vote on Konrad Mizzi as the new Deputy Leader, a report surfaced that Mr Mizzi had a trust in New Zealand with a link to a company registered in Panama.
There is no indication, of course, that the source of the report was among those not allied to Mr Mizzi within the party. Mr Mizzi anyway was the sole candidate.
But the revelation turned the whole deputy leader election into a farce when all Malta, except TVM and One News, was agog about the new revelation and its implications and speculation rebounded from one end of the island to the other.
All this brought massive negative publicity about the party and its leadership, and, you know what, the party delegates gave a massive 96% support to Dr Mizzi. It was almost Ceausescu-time.
Konrad Mizzi’s replies to the many questions were a mix. Sometimes he forgot, sometimes he hid. This paper has been for weeks asking for an interview with him, but got no response while other papers did get – only for them to be found they were tricked by incomplete information.
In other words, all this was self-inflicted.
Where does this leave the party, regardless of the 96% consent expressed on Thursday?
It leaves it under a massive negative publicity glare. Elements and issues such as opening companies in suspect countries have never been part of the Socialist tradition. Nor setting up trusts to take care of inheritance issues.
Workers do not have the means, nor the time, to do such things. You have to have massive funds to do so and workers do not have these massive funds.
The removal of Toni Abela may have left the party without one sole Labour conscience in it at least at the top. But we forget: the party, under Konrad Mizzi, is to make a great leap forward.
This is a problem shared by other parties, not least the Nationalist one: the leader and the deputy leader tend to become clones of each other. Ideally, they should balance each other out but the electoral forces at play tend to come up with the same majority for the leader and for the deputy leader.
To conclude: with such an inauspicious beginning, the party will find it difficult to ride this massive wave of negative publicity and of course this does nothing to stop people from leaving the party, disgusted at the turn of events.
Dr Mizzi has been rammed down the throats of the party, and then confirmed by the votes of 96%. It now has to be seen with what kind of percentage the Labour voters support this turn of events.