This has been a remarkable year for Malta. It can also be said it was going remarkably well for the Prime Minister and his government until recent events. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister deftly side stepped serious accusations of wrongdoing, called an early election which he won handsomely, presided over a booming economy which no doubt had a lot to do with his electoral victory. It now seems he may have been in the running for the EU Presidency or at least that tasty carrot had evidently been dangled within sniffing distance by wily EC President Juncker. That of course would explain why this Prime Minister was in such a rush to embrace so-called EU progressive policies with fanatic zeal and alacrity. He obviously feathered his nest with hastily put together legislation, cynically using the sympathetic catalyst of the LGBT bandwagon as the vehicle to endear himself to Brussels.

However, perversely as it may sound, Partit Nazzjonalista (PN) delivered the Prime Minister his greatest triumph since the election by gifting him Adrian Delia as the Leader of the Opposition. Following a farcically lengthy and pontifically complicated process, PN eventually produced an heir apparent. Much to the gleeful disbelief of the government benches, the highly respected and competent Simon Busuttil was replaced by a political novice some say with a shadowy and controversial background. Soon after, Malta was robbed of one of its most admired and respected investigative journalists. A wife, a mother and fearlessly implacable nemesis of all dodgy politicians was brutally assassinated for her investigative work. Despite the Prime Minister’s rebuttal, Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder is a defining and blackening point in Malta’s rich history.

It was a moment in time when politicians, leaders from all walks of life needed to stand up and be counted, an occasion which challenged leaders to demand action and provide satisfactory answers to the nation with Churchillian vim. It was a time for statesmanlike leadership. PN Leader Delia confers with the Prime Minister immediately after the bombing but agrees with him not to disclose the nature or the content of their discussions. Given this is possibly the most significant event in recent Maltese history, circumstances so heinous it was reported globally by the world’s leading media sources.

The fact that Daphne Galizia had questioned the integrity of both the Prime Minister and Delia, the decision to keep details of that meeting confidential beggars belief. Sunday’s march for Justice attended by thousands of deeply concerned Maltese citizens from all walks of life and different shades of the political spectrum was shunned by Adrian Delia apparently due to the laughable excuse that he did not wish to create controversy. In short, like the Prime Minister he ducked for cover thus exposing his own vulnerability. Delia is the Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition.

By definition, his business is to challenge and deal with controversy. Simon Busuttil had no qualms about attending and delivered a most eloquent and fearless speech underlining the quality of the leadership loss to his party and a glaring contrast with the new. Except for some notable exceptions within its ranks, PN is currently a party representative of mediocrity, a party bereft of policy or ideology bankrupted of credibility by a core rabble mob whose destructive individual ambition matches their absolute lack of ability and foresight. It’s what has confined the party to irrelevant obscurity and likely, in the fullness of time, to lead to total annihilation. PN has reached rock bottom and rightly deserves to remain in political wilderness for a generation.

According to media reports there is an on-line petition doing the rounds calling for support for Prime Minister Muscat and referring to him as Malta's saviour. In the current difficult circumstances in Malta, I suspect the Prime Minister is more embarrassed than grateful for such an untimely choice of title. However, given that it's been put out there, it begs the question. What has the Prime Minister saved Malta from exactly? The floodgates open immediately. Saved from the choking clutches of the Rule of Law particularly grateful are the car bombers and those who are now free to hijack any opportunity at illegal activity. The principle of Ministerial Responsibility was spiked through the heart and speedily despatched to an unmarked grave.

Patronage and pork barrel politics just weeks prior to an election were resuscitated in timely fashion and duly commissioned to take a leading combat role against the ethics of a democratic process during an election called expeditiously early to divert the public’s attention from serious allegations raised by Daphne Caruana Galizia. The doctrines of separation of powers, the independence of the Judiciary were napalmed into oblivion despite a Constitution designed to protect those institutions. Good governance was stifled soon after the government was first elected.

Malta is now truly free of those vital checks and balances developed by the Westminster system over five centuries as this government and saviour Prime Minister Muscat deemed them superfluous and obviously may have cramped his style. Both the Prime Minister and the President recently made laudable comments about their support for Maltese institutions. Institutions are stable, valued recurring patterns of behaviour as well as public bodies established to support and uphold laws (apologies to Wikipedia). In Malta, none have escaped the sharp scythe of the Prime Minister and his ministers.

The army might as well be called his personal army; enough has already been said about the cronyism, nepotism and incompetence in the police force without adding to it the judiciary. In any half-decent democratic system, the judiciary should be truly untouchable by government, but it is now littered with patronage appointed judges and magistrates whose experience and competence or lack of it was clearly not part of their selection criteria and who are unarguably in conflict with matters involving the government. However, they continue to act regardless under the benign eye of the Ministry for Justice and the Attorney General. With those institutions well and truly under his thumb, this Prime Minister and his Ministers have truly gained immunity. Other than that, as the Prime Minister maintains, everything is perfectly fine in Malta now that it has been saved.