The Labour Party often boasts of having been the party to set up the Office of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life.

And Robert Abela has often said that he is a PM who takes decisions, who can make heads roll when required, as seen in the case of Justyne Caruana, who resigned in the wake of the Bogdanovic scandal, Silvio Grixti, who resigned amid a police investigation into fraudulent medical certificates, and Konrad Mizzi, who was kicked out of the PL in the wake of the Daphne Caruana Galizia political crisis.

But it seems that, the closer we get to the general election, the further away political correctness and ethics are moving.

Over the past couple of weeks, new scandals have emerged, serious scandals and allegations of wrongdoing, which the PM has simply swept under the carpet, declaring the case closed before the debate had even begun.

These include two scandals which concern the Prime Minister directly – his relationship with a man who now stands charged of kidnapping and who was allegedly involved in money laundering, and the Planning Authority retainer to Abela’s legal firm which was more than doubled to €17,000 a month under a Labour government.

Instead of sitting down with journalists and explaining what really went down, Abela has accused media houses of spinning stories and making up facts. This when these facts are as clear as day.

The Prime Minister has simply downplayed his relationship with former legal client Chris Borg by saying that the deal in question was related to a “small plot in Zabbar”, rather than some mega project. As if that makes any difference.

In the case of the €17k PA retainer, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister simply justified the amount paid out from taxpayer money by saying that the workload had increased. Yet Abela still refuses to publish his contract, despite daily preaching about transparency and accountability.

Abela has also tried to shut down the discussion on tourism minister Clayton Bartolo’s girlfriend, who was hired into his secretariat and was allegedly later moved to another ministry’s books in a bid to avoid another Bogdanovic scandal. “The case is closed,” Abela said a couple of weeks ago, even though reports about this scandalous behaviour are still emerging on an almost daily basis.

The same can be said about the way in which Abela replied to questions about the public office being used by Joseph Muscat, and which was given to him as part of his severance package. No other details were provided by Abela, who refuses to comment on his predecessor’s €120,000 terminal payout, which is reportedly double what he was owed.

It seems that Abela’s and the Labour Party’s ‘transparency’ phase was rather short-lived and has now been ditched in favour of a pre-election siege mentality. ‘The less said, the better.’

This is rather reminiscent of Joseph Muscat’s 2013 mantra of transparency, which flew right out of the window the minute he stepped into the Auberge de Castille.

If Robert Abela wants us to believe that he is a transparent politician, he must be transparent all-year round, not just when it suits him. He must be even more transparent now, when he is pleading to the public to vote in another Labour administration.

He probably believes that he can do as he pleases, because the PL will surely win the coming election. But this is not what the country deserves. The country deserves a government that does the right thing 365 days a year.