Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination turned a nobody into a somebody. Robert Abela emerged the unexpected winner of a deviously distorted leadership race. The journalist’s brutal murder caused Joseph Muscat’s calamitous fall. But he managed to cling on long enough to torpedo the prospects of his deputy.
Muscat snatched victory for his consultant Abela from the jaws of defeat. Muscat needed Abela to save his own skin. Through his Macchiavelian machinations, Muscat not only won protection for himself and his cabal but also secured an obscene severance package, the contents of which remain concealed by Abela. Muscat abusively negotiated use of government offices for his own private use. He ensured the putrid Vitals concession would be extended. Muscat knew Abela owed him everything and would comply. Abela wouldn’t dare terminate the concession. Muscat would continue to serenely draw thousands of euro from Accutor AG with whom he negotiated a 540,000 euro deal. That company received millions of euro from Steward on the day it took over the Vitals concession.
The symbiotic relationship between Muscat and Abela worked well for a while - until that fateful search at Muscat’s home and the offices in which he squatted. That humiliating search transformed Muscat into a wounded beast. Muscat blamed Abela for failing to protect him. A paranoid Muscat struck back. Abela faced his hostile tirade. Trembling in fear, Abela quickly attempted to tame the beast by attacking the judiciary and threatening the magistrate. Abela’s desperate efforts of appeasement were too little too late for the ‘Kink’.
Abela now navigates treacherous waters. Too close to Muscat and the country’s FATF greylisting is prolonged. Too far and the wrath of the ruthless former PM rages. Abela is at Muscat’s mercy.
The election is Abela’s only route of escape from Muscat’s stifling clutches. Only a bigger victory than Muscat’s in 2017 will allow him to stamp his own authority.
To engineer such a Herculean feat, Abela needed to turn Labour’s propaganda machine for his own glorification. He needed ONE to dethrone Muscat from his plinth of adulation and to elevate him as Labour’s golden calf. Robert Abela 2022 sends only one message. Muscat is finished. Forget Muscat. Embrace Abela.
The slick propaganda was fused with ruthless callousness. The loyal l-Orizzont editor, Victor Vella, who served the socialist cause through thick and thin for 27 years, was brutally axed. His commitment to support workers undermined Abela’s manufactured illusion of a national paradise. The truth revealed by l-Orizzont’s editor demolished Abela’s fantasy. Vella simply had to go.
Abela’s illusion of prosperity, economic success and record employment did not stand a chance against the lived reality of rising prices, unaffordable housing, escalating debts, expensive medicines and dug-up roads. Instead of addressing those scourges, Labour squandered millions on gaudy gimmicks - the Malta Film Awards, Malta Philharmonic concerts of the Leader’s playlist, Michelle Muscat’s fashion shows, Lydia and Robert Abela’s “A Night at the Palace”, repeated lavish launches of projects and roads. Abela is selling Malta the fiction of its prosperity. In fact Malta has accumulated massive debts. The country’s much trumpeted finances are in freefall, unsupervised by an EU that has shelved fiscal rectitude and suspended spending rules. An irresponsible caretaker prime minister is now borrowing more and more millions to buy his own precious victory to eclipse those of Muscat.
Abela boasts that his government has a cabinet of energetic youths: “I practically only had youths behind me”. It’s really a bunch of immature juveniles led by their libido and repeatedly sucked into scandal, jeopardizing national security and exposing them to blackmail and bribery - Rosianne Cutajar-Yorgen Fenech, Clayton Bartolo-Amanda Muscat, Owen Bonnici-Janice Bartolo, Justyne Caruana -Danjel Bogadanovic.
Abela is now reduced to offering everything to everyone. Cheques galore in the middle of a campaign. Zonqor is now generously returned to its rightful owners who still cannot imagine how much they’re paying for its redemption. The Marsascala marina has been shelved after Ian Borg labelled the anti-marina protest a PN candidate’s election campaign.
As the ominous clouds of unsustainable government spending, mounting deficit and unmitigated corruption thicken, Abela is sold as the Messiah. A carpet bombing strategy of propaganda dominates the social media, radio and TV stifling dissenting voices. The monopolization of institutions gave people little choice but to support Labour. Dissenters are targeted as enemies of the state. Even lifelong Labour diehards like Desmond Zammit Marmara are not spared the vilification and abuse of Labour’s trolls. Every voluntary organisation must pledge allegiance to Labour to stand a chance of funding. Band clubs, fireworks enthusiasts, racing aficionados, artists, film directors must endorse Labour. Those who resist face ostracisation and retribution. Labour has taken control of all aspects of society showering chosen ones with taxpayers’ funds. It permeates itself into the lives of citizens coating every surface with slick propaganda. 66.7% of the population watch TVM or ONE. Only 12.8% watch Net TV. The narrative of TVM-ONE is that PN caused all the problems - the PN’s 2006 local plans are to blame for their Marsascala marina.
The slick filming of Abela’s harangues, the drone footage, the rousing music is reminiscent of Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘The Triumph of the Will’ which Adolf Hitler commissioned. The film documented his 1934 Nuremberg Nazi party congress. Its central theme was ‘unity’, a theme that Abela’s propaganda promotes.
Abela’s objective of trumping Muscat is within reach. His propaganda has worked. His deception has convinced many to vote for a party that openly flouts decency. Labour took over the country through legal means. But then thwarted the institutions to serve its purposes, undermining the rule of law, concealing its illicit and corrupt deals, perverting justice, protecting its erring MPs, their lovers and their friends. Why is the nation so fatally attracted to a Labour leader who drained millions of taxpayers’ funds into his pockets, who associated with shady characters, entered into business deals with them, conceals his income and his tax returns, and intimidates journalists?