After all that has happened, people are still perplexed. They know what has happened but still have no idea how things came to this conclusion. And, not understanding, there are a lot of angry people around out there.

We know the details but many do not understand the implications.

Take Joseph Muscat, for instance. Usually a head of government is forced to resign because of a vote of no confidence or a defeat at the polls. None of these has happened. Muscat felt he had to go because his position had become untenable.

Little by little, we are getting to understand why. Many of the details now coming out regarding what took place before and after Daphne was killed allegedly involve events and people in the Office of the Prime Minister. The prime minister may not have been personally involved but he carries the responsibility of what happened in his office.

So he was not hounded out of office by the demonstrations outside Parliament. He, and he alone, took the decision to go considering what has been revealed (and possibly what may emerge later on). The demonstrations were colourful, aggressive and courageous but not as dangerous as was depicted on the Labour media – scratches on cars are no comparison to torched cars.

They are an unwieldy tool, as became evident on Friday morning when whistles and insults were levelled at the head of state and the armed forces themselves. On the other hand, ordering the bulk of the police force to guard Valletta’s streets was a case of overkill, as was the posthumous insistence on the need of police permission to hold a protest when the police themselves the previous day sent for the organisers of the protest to agree on some rules of engagement with no mention, it seems, of the need of a permit. The minister of police’s right hand does not know what the left one is doing.

So, Dr Muscat will be resigning but he is taking his own sweet time to do so. As the head of government, he attended the European Council although one widely-used photo showed him sitting forlornly on his own. But the Council does things differently – it had to deal with Berlusconi and other miscreants before so it has some experience in this regard.

Dr Muscat also said he wanted to oversee the election of his successor, and, in so doing, threw a spanner in the works. The picture of him and the two candidates last Sunday portrayed continuity whereas the candidates themselves, to a greater or lesser extent, were positioning themselves for change. There is no doubt, however, at least in my opinion that the vast bulk of the PL supporters they want continuity seeing they have no clear idea what led to Muscat’s resignation.

There is now a constant stream of party notables singing from a different hymn sheet – the President, appointed by Muscat, condemned the ‘gang’ that has sullied Malta’s name. Muscat’s predecessor, Alfred Sant, downplayed the allegation that the international media was in cahoots with the Opposition. Former MEP Marlene Mizzi urged Muscat to go immediately. No wonder the PL grassroots feels, in  OwenBonnici’s words, ‘betrayed’.

And, in these dramatic circumstances what does the party in Opposition do? The leader comes up with a list of proposals, one of which says that party media must be banned. So with one and the same proposal Dr Delia would be getting rid of his own media which is like an albatross around the party’s finances and also getting rid of One TV.

He has no hope in hell. One TV (at that time Super One) came into being through a loophole in the law and not through any government permission. It is petty, deeply partisan and exaggerates things but its supporters would go to war to ensure its survival.

The protest organisers, the many coalescing groups, also have some thinking to do. They can, of course, continue the protests right until Christmas Day and beyond but then what? They can continue to hound and target the persons they want to get rid of, but then what?

It would be far better for them to come up with a series of demands or proposals that can become the benchmarks of a new era in Malta’s history. In my opinion, the very first of these proposals would be to dismantle the absolutist powers of the prime minister and to install constitutional safeguards in this regard.

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