By today we will confirm what we already knew. Labour won again. We’ll confirm that despite the outrageous corruption, the damage wreaked on the state, the total disregard for democratic principles, Malta still voted for more of the same.

The only thing we’ve yet to discover is the size of that majority.  Whatever it will be, Labour gets another bite at the cherry. The depressing fact is many of those who behaved dishonorably, abused their position, treated the public with contempt have been elected with a bigger vote.

Robert Abela had the chance to filter out those bad apples, at least the most rotten.  Abela could have left Rosianne Cutajar out.  After all she admitted to accepting thousands from an alleged money launderer and murderer.  Abela’s own MPs at the parliamentary standards committee approved the commissioner’s report.  That report made serious accusations.  It concluded that Cutajar lied to the Commissioner. She denied brokering the sale of a property.  The weight of evidence indicated she received money for her part in the property sale. Despite being sanctioned by the committee, Abela promoted her.  He gave her wide berth by withdrawing his own candidature from her Qormi.

Abela could have dropped Zammit Lewis.  He too lied, denying he had any relationship whatsoever with Yorgen Fenech. Yet evidence showed he exchanged hundreds of grovelling messages with him.  He begged him for jobs.  He stayed at Fenech’s French Alps Hilton and despite his bluff never provided evidence he funded the trip himself. But Abela let Zammit Lewis run and get elected easily, judging by the enthusiastic reception he received at the Birkirkara event.  He after all defended so many of his colleagues at the Standards Committee - Carmelo Abela, Justyne Caruana, Rosianne Cutajar, and of course Joseph Muscat.  The principle guiding Labour is unity - always protect your own no matter how grievous the damage they inflict on the nation. No matter how serious, how criminal the MP’s actions were - if they’re Labour, protect them at any cost. And Zammit Lewis did everything to pervert justice on that committee.

Glenn Bedingfield will surely be elected, with huge support.  He too defended Labour’s own.  Look at the effort he made to defend Konrad Mizzi, banned from the US for corruption, at the PAC.  He surely deserves to be rewarded with a huge show of trust by the electorate. No matter how offensive his abuse towards the murdered journalist, how craven his interruptions at the PAC, how insensitive his attacks on the journalist’s family. And he’s had the endorsement of Labour’s idol - Joseph Muscat.  How could Cottonera forget him? Abela couldn’t possibly keep him out.

Abela should have at least kept Anton Refalo out. How could Abela allow a man who allegedly stole a piece of our heritage for his personal enjoyment contest under Labour’s flag? Didn’t Abela worry that Refalo would be prosecuted for a crime carrying a hefty prison sentence? Didn’t he think about the embarrassment that would cause his party or the doubt it would raise about his own judgement? Of course not.  Abela was happy for Refalo to be presented to the constituents of that swing district of Gozo. Abela calculated that excluding Refalo would be too much of a gamble.  So Abela did what he always does - he chose political expediency over justice. And, though with the skin of his teeth, Refalo is back. Abela’s message is that stealing Malta’s heritage is no big deal.  That message is endorsed by the Gozitan support for Refalo.

Abela endorsed Clayton Bartolo too.  He gave him a platform allowing him to speak at Labour’s events.  Bartolo had concealed the employment of his friend Amanda Muscat. His spokesperson denied she was employed with the Gozo ministry despite being listed on the government address book as a person of trust at that ministry.  Her details were removed from the address list, when the revelations surfaced, to conceal the truth. That didn’t matter to Abela. Neither did it matter that Bartolo squandered millions on a single night at the Film awards.  It didn’t matter either that Bartolo concealed the actual cost of that event from the public. Or that he did his utmost to reject freedom of information requests denying the public information they were entitled to. It’s no surprise Bartolo’s been elected too.

Abela wasn’t interested that Ian Borg abused of a mentally ill man to snatch his property for a miserly sum. He didn’t worry that the court found Ian Borg ‘not credible’. Nor was Abela concerned about the tens of millions of direct orders Borg issued.  Or the outrageous award of tens of thousands of euro in direct orders to his canvasser’s daughter, who had barely qualified. Borg’s Transport Malta alone spent 60 million in direct orders in just 3 years. But that’s just fine.  Borg will be elected and be there in cabinet again.

There were just too many Abela should have kept out - Silvio Schembri, Carmelo Abela, Evarist Bartolo, Owen Bonnici.  Now they’re all back in, soon to be clamouring for their cabinet post. Abela should have spared the country.

But Abela simply couldn’t. His own dark past eclipses all others’.  His business links with suspected narcotics smuggler and kidnapper Christian Borg, his Iklin development with Gilbert Bonnici, his acquisition of his illegal Zejtun property sanctioned at the last minute at rock bottom price, its rental to Russian oligarchs, the secrecy around his income and tax returns, his sale of golden passports, his personal unexplained wealth -  too many skeletons in Abela’s closet.  Antagonising his own MPs would risk bringing them tumbling out into the open. Abela’s only route to victory was the code of silence.

To think that all of the above, with their unscrupulous dishonesty, will govern Malta for another five years is bone-chilling.

But the fragile unity within the party depends on that code of silence.  It can’t last. There is just one silver lining. This marks the beginning of Labour’s downfall.