Toni Abela told journalists that if he got an unfavourable reply, he would withdraw his candidature to the European Court of Auditors (ECA). Yet, I don’t know why, Abela felt the need to make such a statement. Was it a question of premonition or was it the case that he knew that it was about time to call it a day in politics? Personally, I do not think that the story of the blokkasilġ was the real reason for this negative outcome. While this came to the fore during the grilling, in particular from the Green MEPs, I believe that the true reasons lie elsewhere.
It is still not clear to me whether this story was a dirty prank or a real case of cocaine abuse. Whatever the truth, this is now history. Politicians should learn from all this and cease to cover up for the sake of the political credibility of their party, because when the time comes, there is strong possibility that they will not find the party behind them.
Unfortunately for Abela, the local police reputation did not help him, for it is widely known that they are not the best institution to safeguard political honesty in Malta. Therefore, the argument that there was nothing wrong because the Police did not prosecute was destined not to hold water.
It would be wrong for Government to seek explanations for what has happened locally and start accusing the Opposition of having worked against Malta. This can only signify that the Opposition is really strong in Brussels. Moreover, I find it strange that Labour thanks the Greens and the Labour MEPs for their support when it seems that they were the real cause of this debacle.
The true reason for this sad situation should be searched in the amateurs that this Government sent to Europe. Lobbying was left in the their hands. In Brussels, one needs true professionals and not turncoats to do this type of work. I have watched Abela’s performance. Clearly, he was not well coached and those who were supposed to do the groundwork, failed miserably.
As correctly observed by The Malta Independent, this is the second refusal in the span of a few weeks. We have already had the candidature of the Chief Justice to the European Court turned down. The situation in this case was even worse for there was a committee specifically set up to vet candidates. Clearly, the members of this committee did not do their homework well. They were mere stooges or amateurs who wanted to please Muscat and his entourage. Europe is not the place for such dirty local political tricks.
In Malta's best interest, we need to avoid such situations and, as a nation, we do not need to have more of these sadistic displays of jubilance because a political adversary was grilled rather harshly and /or obtained an unfavourable result.
It is not in the interest of the two main parties to use these grilling sessions to gain local political kudos. Within Labour, a negative grilling could have served to settle tug-of-war disputes within its fold and NP party strategists might erroneously be thinking that a negative vote can be another blow for Labour at a point when it is not doing well.
The Maltese nation tends to unite when faced with a foreign adversary. If one wishes to have a proof of what I am stating, the Italian TV programme, which ridiculed the Prime Minister about the lack of payments to the Italian company over the work done on Piano’s parliament, comes in handy. This coverage only succeeded in gathering support and solidarity for Muscat. At least this is the impression I got on following the way the social media reacted to this story. After the backlash from the social media, this story died a natural death and is no longer mentioned by the Opposition as part of its political discourse.
In this delicate period when, in Europe, national sentiments are running high, it is not in the interests of mainstream political groups to behave in a way that will appear to offend the sentiments of any nation state, as this will continue to decrease the trust that European citizens are starting to have in EU institutions. Therefore, I can only view this outcome as a clear message from Europe that it is expecting us to follow good practices to the letter. It was here where Abela failed his test. He should have built his arguments around this concept. This is why I stated above that he was misguided in the way how he answered the questions which were not difficult to guess.
However, one has to admit that the nomination of Toni Abela to the Court of Auditors was a political ploy to kick him upstairs. This too had impinged on Abela’svote. On a local level, it is now evident that the Labour core is in turmoil and Konrad Mizzi will not be making miracles. Labour has already lost about 6% of the votes obtained in the last election. Labour is risking a repeat of 1998, when one of the biggest electoral victories till then, fizzled to nothing after 22 months. This happened in part due to the fact that a section of the old Labour guard refused to go out and vote. The self-destructive streak of certainLabour voters should not be undervalued. If Labourites start saying in public that they are not going out to vote, then they will be bound to keep their word or else lose their honour with the rest of their community.
In this scenario, the worst thing that the NP can do is to provoke useless battles against the candidature of Toni Abela and try to transform this debacle into a PN victory, even if, as a party, it was exterior to this event. In so doing the NP is a risking an auto goal and kick-off the old Labour guard to start changing its mind about its voting preference in the next general election.