The Leader of the Labour Party has decided to contest the general elections on two districts: the second and the fifth. To do this he has abandoned the sixth district, which is historically tied to his father, and which had elected him in 2017. Is it a father-son issue? I doubt it. I think the considerations are pragmatic not psychological. Let's run a quick tentative analysis.

Competition with Bernard Grech?

The Nationalist leader too is contesting the fifth district. Does Robert Abela want to show he can garner more personal votes than Bernard Grech?

Again, I doubt it. The fifth district is a Labour district. Bernard Grech is contesting there because he grew up in one of that district's localities, meaning that he has strong personal ties with people who were close to him when he was growing up and in his early adulthood. Those are special ties that accompany a person throughout their life, and I think it is another indication of Bernard Grech's attractive personality that he wishes to give a new meaning to those ties in this particular period of his life.

Does Robert Abela want to compete with that? One can say many things about Robert Abela – that he's pampered, that he's un figlio di papà, that he was born or reared with a silver spoon in his mouth, that he lacks empathy with the underprivileged classes, that he's juvenile when he goes to Sicily to play with his expensive toys – you can say many things that are anything but flattering, but I do not think Dr Abela wants to compete against the Nationalist leader in a Labour-leaning district. Despite his many shortcomings, I think he has a sense of honour, and it would be highly dishonourable to compete in a district where the numbers are clearly in his favour.

So I exclude that Dr Abela's fifth-district candidature has anything to do with Dr Grech.

If Dr Abela wants to compete with a (former) leader, it's on the second district where he might want to outshine his narcissistic predecessor. Then again, despite all the shortcomings one might identify in Dr Abela, I think he's certainly not puerile, and he's more pragmatic than narcissistic. Whereas You-Know-Who must love looking at his reflection in the mirror, I think that Robert Abela prefers to see the seeds that he sows (or have been sown for him), germinate and grow. The second-district candidature is not, to my mind, Dr Abela's puerile attempt to compete with You-Know-Who but a pragmatic, albeit indirect way to help his sister-in-law.

Clipping Miriam Dalli's wings?

I have known Miriam Dalli since she was in her early twenties, and she's always been a beautiful woman with a strong personality. She probably intimidates Robert Abela: she's intelligent, forceful, and beautiful - a femme fatale. In addition, if you consider her father-in-law's legacy – Karmenu Vella was deeply revered by Labourites in the fifth district – you will probably share the view that there are quite a few reasons why Robert Abela looks at Miriam Dalli with a mixture of admiration and suspicion.

It's obvious that somebody like Miriam Dalli might aspire to lead the Labour Party and to mount an offensive if Robert Abela fails to mesmerise the electorate.

That said, I do not think that Dr Abela is blind to Dr Dalli's shortcomings and to the way the current political scene is set. When he makes his calculations, he cannot but draw the conclusion that, though she's potentially a threat, Dr Dalli is not a real threat. Not yet, at least. Dr Dalli is still young, so she too might be biding her time, waiting for the right moment to strike. I think 2022 is not the right moment for her, as yet.

So, my conclusion is that Dr Abela is not contesting the fifth district to dent Miriam Dalli's popularity. Not primarily, at least.

No, the reason is another. And I think it has to do with damage control.

Getting rid of Owen Bonnici?

I found this definition of Occam's razor and I would like to apply it to this analysis. "Occam's razor is a principle of theory construction or evaluation according to which, other things equal, explanations that posit fewer entities, or fewer kinds of entities, are to be preferred to explanations that posit more."

In other words, the simplest explanation is usually the best explanation.

I think Robert Abela realises that his government is afflicted by political appendicitis, and the political appendix which has to be removed is Owen Bonnici. I'm morally convinced that Robert Abela views Owen Bonnici as a useless appendix that needs to be removed. The sooner, the better.

Not only have die-hard Labourites – who won't consider voting Nationalist come what may – been offered an interesting choice on the third district. But already Dr Bonnici is struggling on that district because of his personal choices of the past and because, over time, people probably realised that he's a feather-weight competitor pretending to be a heavy-weight champion.

On the fifth district, Owen Bonnici isn't personally known, he's only one of the many candidates running for office. To my understanding, this would explain why Dr Abela has decided to contest on this district. He wants to ensure that he doesn't have to re-appoint Dr Bonnici to his Cabinet of Ministers in case of a Labour victory. One can fully understand why Dr Abela seems so keen to ensure this outcome.

Dr Bonnici has an abysmal record as Minister. The average citizen ignores what Owen Bonnici's Ministry consists of, and why it was even created. It's a sort of Frankenstein Ministry, a weird body composed of pieces and organs from other bodies. And then, nobody really knows what he managed to achieve during his time in office. I think Robert Abela has been shaking his head in disbelief at Owen Bonnici's poor performance. He obviously understands that Minister Bonnici had assiduously bootlicked You-Know-Who like there's no tomorrow and that was the only reason he survived. Dr Abela clearly understands that You-Know-Who kept Dr Bonnici around because Dr Bonnici is a sycophant, not somebody who's able to deliver.

Robert Abela's choice of Clyde Caruana as his Finance Minister speaks volumes. You might like or dislike Mr Caruana's politics, but the point is that he delivers. I, for one, disagree with the policies Mr Caruana pushes, but I can clearly see that he delivers, time and again. Now compare Clyde Caruana with Owen Bonnici. One, it's not completely clear what Dr Bonnici's political promises are, and two, it's not completely clear whether he's delivering on them, whatever they could be. Obviously, Robert Abela sees this, and he naturally wants all his Ministers to be like Clyde Caruana: he wants them to deliver and to be seen to deliver. Owen Bonnici clearly fails on both counts.

Frankly, even though I won't be voting Labour, as a citizen of Malta I think my country would be a better place with Owen Bonnici out of Parliament. There are more talented candidates on the Labour ticket, who have political nous, and would be an asset to the country.

So far, Owen Bonnici has shown that he is a mediocre law-maker and a weak member of the Executive. His U-turn on the Marsaskala marina was one example. A more recent example is the expletive that escaped from his mouth during a radio interview when he was talking about the national orchestra. I fail to understand why he needed to get worked up when discussing the national orchestra, of all things, but he did talk as if he were having the umpteenth whisky in the district bar trail during the electoral campaign.

I hope the voters of the fifth district take Dr Abela's cue and do the country a big favour. There are other candidates that have got more to offer the country.

My Personal Video Library (29)

I'm Back is a 2018 Italian movie (original title: Sono Tornato) about the magical return of Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini from the realm of the dead... I'll be very frank about this movie: it was meant to be a satirical comedy, but I agree with certain critics who consider it a sad piece of cinema because it missed many opportunities to be funny.

On the other hand, it's an instructive movie because of its unscripted parts that document the reaction of ordinary people to the Dictator Mask. Not realising that a movie was being shot, many ordinary Italians raised their arm to salute the actor thinking it was a Fascist re-enactment or something similar. Boris Solazzo of Rolling Stone said, "[The film tells us] how much the current world is fascist, hypothesizes how Benito Mussolini, in 2018, would be accepted. Triumphantly. Like all national populists after him. And now."

The movie, directed by Luca Miniero, narrates how Mussolini (played by Massimo Popolizio) magically returns to 2017 Rome, gets noticed by people in the media who think he's a comedy actor and give him a chance to appear on a TV show. Mussolini gains more and more popularity. A few criticise the media for using his rhetoric to sell their show, but the criticism falls on deaf ears. Mussolini becomes a 21st-century star. After a short hiatus, in which he falls from grace because he shoots a dog, the dog's owner forgives him on live TV and Mussolini rides back to his growing success.

Obviously, the film has a lot to say about current politics, spurred by the totalitarian tendency inherent in radical liberalism. The film wanted to be funny, but it had to fail, because a film about totalitarianism can never be really funny, as Charles Chaplin and Sacha Baron Cohen discovered. Totalitarianism is, almost by definition, always a tragedy.

I'm Back came to my mind because You-Know-Who seems to want to come back, and has started by sneakily attending Labour candidates' gigs.