The vote of no confidence was won in parliament by the government last night, but the Panama Papers will not just go away.
Joseph Muscat’s government’s massive parliamentary majority was reflected in the vote in the House of Representatives yesterday, as the Labour Party parliamentary group toed the line and presented a united front and backed the government. But the Panama Papers will not go away; if anything, they keep rearing their ugly head with more tantalising snippets of information.
Unbelievably, Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi lives to fight another day, but as more and more revelations come through, he is forced to react, along with OPM Chief of Staff, almost every day as a little more of the PanamaPapers leaks see the light of day.
The Prime Minister though, continues to preach his mantra... he will not take action until the audit is completed and he knows the full story. But, the questions that the local media has asked time and time again, continue to go unheeded. When will the audit be completed? Who is carrying it out? Will we get full disclosure? Will the findings (if any, given the opacity of Panama) be made public?
What the Prime Minister did not grasp the magnitude of, was the backlash he was going to get from the general public. The latest survey by Business Leaders, carried out for The Malta Independent, was carried out at the height of the scandal. The results showed that 52% and 49% of respondents wanted Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri out. The same survey showed that the level of trust in Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was eroded by 5.6 points while that in Simon Busuttil rose by 8.8 points.
It is a very clear verdict, and it is also very clear that the longer that the Prime Minister holds out, the more support he is losing. This government may have survived the vote of no confidence, but the PanamaPapers and its ensuing fallout could ultimately lead to this government’s eventual downfall – even if it is at the next general election.
The government already lost one MP in Marlene Farrugia, who resigned from the party last year on environmental concerns as well as the increasingly bulldozerish approach that the Prime Minister was taking towards various issues.
It has also become apparent that the Prime Minister has lost some trust from his own senior ministers who believe that by not dismissing Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri, Malta’s reputation is being sullied abroad.
The fact of the matters remains to be that Malta has a sound and trusted financial services sector, yet the Prime Minister’s right and left hand men opted to seek the services of a legal firm to open companies in Panama. Most people on the street believe that alone warrants instant dismissal. But the Prime Minister has persevered in defending both Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri, and his standing amongst the electorate has suffered.
It will probably be safe to say that the longer this scandal festers, the more it will affect the Prime Minister and the labour Party’s poll ratings. In reality, there was only one way out of this. The government should have temporarily suspended both men, at least for the sake of allowing the government to continue with its plan of implementation of the electoral manifesto. But no. The government yesterday said that it was a shame that the PanamaPapers has overshadowed all the good that it has achieved over the past years. The government is absolutely correct. However, what it has not seemed to have realised that it is completely its own fault that it is happening. Quick and decisive action against Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri would have changed all of that in an instant. Seven weeks down the line and counting, and we still have no answers. At least, with the announcement by Marlene Farrugia saying that she will be filing a motion of no confidence against Konrad Mizzi, something might finally shift in this eternally bogged down two-party parliament. Let us hope that those PL Ministers who urged the PM to do something will follow through and vote according to what they have been saying publicly, and not so publicly.