The testimony provided by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Anglu Farrugia, in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder public inquiry provides a very deep insight into the workings of Joseph Muscat and the Labour Party in general.
Farrugia was testifying on his days when he was deputy leader of the party before he was forced to quit by Muscat on the eve of the 2013 election following comments Farrugia had made about a magistrate. At the time, there was a conjecture that this was just an excuse for Farrugia to be kicked out. Now we know that it was correct to think that Muscat had simply found a way to get rid of Farrugia. The comments about the magistrate had nothing to do with it.
That Farrugia was bold enough to say in court that he never supported Muscat and that he was never one of the outgoing PM’s favourites goes a long way to confirm that Muscat used preferential treatment with some while discarding others. We all know that two Cabinet members – Manwel Mallia and Michael Falzon – were told to quit for situations that people under their responsibility were involved in. And yet Muscat never kicked out Keith Schembri, and first retained and later reappointed Konrad Mizzi as minister in spite of what they were involved in.
Where Farrugia should have been bolder is in the naming of the people who used to frequent the now fabled fourth floor of the Labour headquarters before the 2013 election. He gave up only two names, that of the president of the Malta Developers Association Sandro Chetcuti, and that of the former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri.
Nobody was surprised, and perhaps Farrugia mentioned their names because it had already been known that these two formed part of a small group of people who were close to Muscat. That small group was responsible for the hatching of the roadmap – the one Muscat depicted as heaven on earth for the whole of Malta (remember the “Taghna Lkoll” 2013 slogan?), but ended up being a paradise for just a few.
It would have been really uplifting if Farrugia had found the courage to name others he saw going up to the fourth floor, to which he had no access, so much so that one needed a special code to be able to enter. He also refused to name them, privately, to the members of the public inquiry board.
From Farrugia’s testimony, it is clear that what was to happen after the 2013 election was planned on the fourth floor. Decisions that were taken there were not communicated to Farrugia who, in spite of holding the second most important post in the party, was isolated.
He did not even know what the party’s energy plan was – and, remember, that was the column on which Labour built its electoral campaign. He was so in the dark that on Malta’s most popular programme, Xarabank, he had said – wrongly – that Labour was not planning to reduce electricity tariffs. Neither was he told about the selling of passports scheme – well, in this case, nobody knew except those with access to the fourth floor, as this was not even listed in the PL’s electoral manifesto, given that Labour did not want to risk losing any support.
Farrugia did get something back from Muscat – the role of Speaker and the appointment of his daughter as a magistrate. But his testimony in court on Tuesday goes a long way in uncovering more details about Muscat’s devious ways.