These past eight weeks have been like a daily soap opera, except that the experience has been depressing not entertaining. One episode more surreal than another, with a cliff hanger at the end of each instalment. Alas the political situation in our country is no fiction. It is surreal and absurd but unfortunately for us and for the country, this mess is truly happening and it is far from over.
Take last Wednesday. We woke up to more revelations from Panama Papers.
It now transpires that Joseph Muscat’s closest aides did not try to open a bank account once or twice but they made enquiries with some eight banks.
Not only that. When Mossack Fonseca contacted the Maltese intermediary and informed him that they had found a “no-questions-asked” bank in the Caribbean as long as the annual deposit in the account was of no less than one million US dollars, Karl Cini, on behalf of Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi replied, “Go ahead to start the opening of the accounts for those two Panama companies."
The questions are once again numerous. Where was this money coming from? If the accounts were not opened, where is the money now?
Later in the afternoon I recorded an edition of Dissett which was transmitted that same evening. Reno Bugeja’s questions were as surreal as the current situation.
At one point we ended up debating Christ’s crucifixion as though Joseph Muscat is being crucified by the Opposition when in fact this is all self-inflicted by Muscat himself.
However, the most shocking moment was when Reno Bugeja implied that the PN believes is the only party with the moral authority to govern this country and do what is right. Obviously this is straight out of Labour’s talking points and, equally obviously, neither I nor any PN representative could ever agree with such a statement.
It would imply that we do not have a real democracy and that voters have no choice. Of course I hope (and I know) that among those sitting on Muscat’s side there are people with integrity and moral authority to do what is right.
On the same Wednesday afternoon we had a press conference in which Simon Busuttil continued to expose the latest developments. It was also his opportunity to remind MPs from both sides that, on Monday, when parliament debates the vote of no confidence, they should do what is right for this country.
Wednesday’s parliamentary session showed clear signs of things to come. With the Prime Minister away and Konrad Mizzi nowhere to be seen, we could see the sombre looks on the faces of the Labour MPs. From across the room we could tell that things are not right. The burden of the current situation is leaving its toll on the PL group which is clearly fragmented.
Jose Herrera, Manwel Mallia, Godfrey Farrugia and Evarist Bartolo made it amply clear that they were supporting arguments made by the Opposition against the government’s proposal to remove the anti-vilification law as proposed by Owen Bonnici. Proposals to amend the law were made from both sides of the room making Owen Bonnici almost irrelevant to the debate itself.
This debate was preceded by two interventions in which two Labour backbenchers each criticised a Labour cabinet minister.
Charles Mangion intervened in defence of the Chairman of the Malta Financial Services Authority, Joe Bannister, implicitly criticising education minister Evarist Bartolo for declaring that he has no faith in him.
This was followed by an intervention by Franco Mercieca, who criticised the economy minister, Chris Cardona, for his sword-and-axe speech on Sunday.
But, before all that, the day was fuelled by the comments made in the media by senior Labour figures demanding Konrad Mizzi’s resignation, namely Alfred Sant, Godfrey Farrugia and Evarist Bartolo. As the latter put it, our country seems to be governed by laws for the gods and laws for the animals.
One question. So if Joseph Muscat and his aides are the gods, does that make all the rest of us the animals?