The government’s awesome spin machine has been hard at work this week trying to bury or at least divert attention from the Konrad Mizzi Panama company.
It pulled out all the stops in an attack on Beppe Fenech Adami. It tried to balance what it called ‘Palazz Fenech Adami’ in Għargħur against the Panama company set up by Konrad Mizzi. The flipside to this attempt is that the spin admits Konrad Mizzi was wrong but then tries to balance things out by drawing a comparison with Fenech Adami.
Others besides Dr Fenech Adami himself have pointed out the gaps in this attack. The area itself was included in the highly controversial rationalization scheme, but Labour has yet to produce the letter from Prime Minister Gonzi specifically exempting the Fenech Adami land. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands who benefitted from the rationalization exercise.
And anyway, if Dr Fenech Adami is guilty, what has this to do with the Konrad Mizzi Panama saga? The Fenech Adami spin by Labour is a damage limitation exercise, and a feeble one at that.
The Konrad Mizzi story, the dubious setting up of a company in Panama, is the real thing and no amount of spin can whitewash that. He is a sitting minister, and a rather senior one at that, soon to become the deputy leader of the party in government, caught with a Chinese boxes type of structure which is normally used to hide away illicit money.
That has been admitted by the Minister himself and no amount of counter-spin can remove the blot. The Minister admitted it not because he felt duty-bound to reveal it, but because he was caught out in a way that defies contradiction.
In any event, if this were remotely mirrored anywhere else, the Minister would be hounded out of Cabinet, at least in most democratic countries.
And this is precisely the crisis staring us in the face: that wrong has been committed, that the perpetrator has been caught out and has admitted to it and that, nonetheless, neither he nor his political master seem to consider this more than a venial sin that would merit, at most, a small fine as the Minister of Justice put it.
This is all the more reason why the rest of the country must not allow its attention to be diverted and tricked into following the wrong scent.
It is true that in the past three years there have been more than the usual quota of scandals, each more or less serious. But this is a case that outstrips them all. The implications range from the minister’s remit to why would a minister secure a bolt-hole on the other side of the world.
Then too, consider the virulence with which the Labour media has attacked the Opposition and the organised mayhem regarding Dr Fenech Adami. Consider also the resounding sound of silence by the vast majority of the members of Cabinet and the ludicrously feeble impact of the one who did not keep silent.
The virulence, precisely, from people who know they are losing the plot and cannot do otherwise. The anger as they see that it is the Opposition, and its arguments, that is doing the running, calling the shots and leading the dance. Someone pointed out at all the talk shows, discussion programmes et al on the normally docile PBS. They were all in one way or another following the PN spin, mentioning the issues which had been raised by the Opposition and surely not because they take their inspiration from the Opposition but precisely because they try hard not to; but the issue simply cannot be swept under the carpet.
Labour, or at least the people at the top know they are losing the argument and they cannot do anything about it. Public attention will not be derailed. Actually, by reacting the way they do, the pro-government spin workers are giving the game away.
From here to admitting they have failed is a short step. They have not delivered the kind of administration they promised. Their administration is getting bogged down in minutiae, at best. The overriding accent is ensuring that a select group at the top gets to the trough before the others.
Whether the government comes to full term is rather immaterial in these circumstances. The Konrad Mizzi story will not go away, will not be buried, and will not be counterbalanced by any massive amount of spin.
It is there to stay and it must be kept that way. Until such a time that the Minister comes to his senses and admits his fault in the saga. Or better still, goes away. The more the government keeps mum on the issue, the more the voices who defend Konrad Mizzi are few and surrounded by a wall of silence, the more the voices who defend Konrad Mizzi are strident, virulent, offensive, and visibly try to deflect public attention – the more people realise the government has lost the plot.
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