There is a limit as to how much can a ‘cause’, ‘celebre’ though it may be, can dominate the news in any country, even a small, convoluted, politically-fixated one such as ours.
The Panama Papers issue has now been milked to its last drop. It was good fun while it lasted but as long as there are now new revelations to come forth, its froth has gone.
Some things have been established, others are based on speculation and suspicion. It has been established that Minister Konrad Mizzi opened a trust in safe New Zealand and this trust then went and opened a company in Panama, a jurisdiction still looked upon as a shifty one. The Panama Papers, the huge hacking effort by an international consortium of journalists, list Dr Mizzi as the only minister in the EU to have a company in Panama.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has so far held off taking any action on his minister and also on his assistant who has made the same process as the minister.
Dr Muscat has always said he awaits the conclusions of a phantomatic audit of a world standing, whose name has not been revealed, into Dr Mizzi’s affairs.
Now Parliament is to devote an entire day on Monday to discuss the matter and to vote on a No Confidence motion. There is no doubt, despite some muttering on the side by some ministers, the vote will end in a win for the government, even if the two unattached MPs vote against.
End of story?
Hardly.
The Opposition has brought the people out twice in a protest against corruption and a protest by NGOs is said to be penciled in for after the vote.
In the other countries that have been affected by the Panama Papers revelations, in only one country, Iceland, and for a specific reason, have the crowds taken to the streets and brought the government down.
Otherwise, in Britain Prime Minister Cameron seems to have seen off the consequences of revelations his father opened a trust fund for him.
Sometimes, the echoes still reverberate, such as in Spain where a minister was forced to resign yesterday.
Here in Malta, the government and its supporters have been eagerly awaiting the return of normalcy which was symbolized by the prime minister going on a tour of the Middle East while all this was happening.
Bar the shouting etc on Monday, the Opposition could end up with nothing to show.
This is precisely what will not happen. People will not forget the issue, nor should the people be allowed to forget. The fact that so far no action has been taken on Dr Mizzi is no sign of strength on the part of the prime minister: on the contrary it is a sign of weakness. The issue, as the prime minister himself admitted, has harmed Malta’s international standing and the good name of the financial services sector.
The government and its mighty spin machine has pulled out all the stops to create diversions and to undermine the thrust of the Opposition’s onslaught. Some government partisans also claim that were it not for the virulence of the attack on the government regarding Panamagate, the prime minister would have been prepared to let go of Dr Mizzi well before now. Whether that is true or whether this is another spin in a long list of spins is a matter for discussion.
When, and if, normalcy returns, and people return to their preferred hobbies, with the early summer and with all the rest that Malta offers, people will still not forget Panamagate. As the surveys show, this is already having an impact on public opinion.