“The Labour Party will be the government and the opposition at the same time,” Randolph Debattista, Labour’s CEO declared.  Debattista was undemocratically co-opted as an MP by Labour’s executive on the order of Robert Abela.  He was speaking on Karl Stagno Navarra’s Pjazza.

Debattista didn’t contest the election.  He couldn’t be bothered.  Many others took the trouble of contesting and engaging in the democratic process. Their name was on the ballot sheet to give the public the opportunity to decide whether they deserved a seat. Most of them spent time, energy and money promoting themselves for the privilege of representing their district. But Debattista, Labour’s CEO didn’t need to. With utter contempt for the electorate, Abela simply picked him to become an MP, ignoring all the hard work those unelected candidates put in. This was a slap in the face of his own candidates but a kick in the guts of democracy.

Even before taking his undeserved seat at Malta’s highest institution, Debattista was spewing disturbing messages of autocracy. The man who was regaled a parliamentary seat in the most undemocratic way imaginable was happily dismantling democracy on a platform provided by ONE’s Stagno Navarra. Debattista’s vision of Labour’s beautiful future is a one-party state where Labour, “will be the government and the opposition at the same time”.

That should send shivers down everybody’s spine - especially those who recall with terror how close the country came to that reality during the dark days of the 80s. There was no reaction from an apathetic uninterested majority easily placated with outright lies and a 100 euro cheque.

Hannah Arendt was fascinated by the passivity of so many people in the face of dictatorship, by the widespread willingness and even eagerness to believe lies and propaganda.  “The masses believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true,” she wrote. She offered deep insights about autocracy and the seductive appeal of its proponents.

Now Debattista, the personfication of Labour’s autocracy, was giving the opposition party duplicitous advice. “They could go for the German model, which means the party will split into two,” he recommended. Here was Labour’s CEO and newly anointed MP sowing the seeds for the disintegration of the opposition party and paving the way for Labour’s utopia - a one party state, where Labour is both government and opposition, where Labour stays in power indefinitely.

Viktor Orban’s recent victory in Hungary offers a model for the power hungry of how to remain in power indefinitely. Labour has been following the dictator’s playbook word for word in its objective of annihilating its opposition. RIPN was not a joke.

Like Orban, Labour has dominated the media, not with outright censorship but by taking over public broadcasting, installing party stalwarts as PBS editors and head of news.  The result is not just pro-Labour bias but viciously partisan reporting that censors even the Pope. The pontiff’s uncomfortable message about corruption was truly buried by TVM. Norma Saliba, Labour’s useful willing pawn, disdainfully ignored requests for comment about why the Pontiff’s anti-corruption message was censored.

But Labour has gone much further. It has manipulated the advertising market. Government and state-owned companies spend huge amounts of money advertising in newspapers that are favourable to government.  Those critical of Labour found that advertising revenues started to dry up.

946,000 euro in COVID financial aid was handed out to news media providers. Malta Enterprise refused to provide information as to how that money was allocated.

Keith Schembri’s alleged money laundering with former Allied Newspaper managing director Adrian Hillman should have raised serious questions.  Hillman received over 1 million dollars from Schembri. Schembri himself wrote an opinion piece claiming that Allied group, which includes Allied Newspaper Ltd and Progress Press Co Ltd, owed him millions of euro and that his company, Kasco, loaned Progress Press 1.5 million euro.

Labour is currently fighting the Data Commissioner in its attempt to conceal millions of euro that ministries and government entities paid Saviour Balzan, the founder and co-owner of Maltatoday. 40 separate ministries and entities have mounted legal challenges to the commissioner’s ruling to release information about money paid to Balzan. Labour is using public money to stop us finding out information we have every right to.

True to form, Saviour Balzan called publicly for Bernard Grech to resign as party leader, on the morning after Labour’s victory. Balzan was doing Labour’s bidding by undermining the opposition leader and weakening him and his party further. But he was also attacking the voices of democracy and anti-corruption - Repubblika, Manuel Delia and The Shift, deviously accusing them of prejudice. He understands as much as Labour that the language of democracy is dangerous to their autocratic power. Balzan publicly attacks and maliciously discredits journalists. Yet he has been selected by Robert Abela’s government to sit on the board of media experts tasked with making recommendations on protecting journalists.

Desmond Zammit Marmara, a former Labour Party councillor, in his opinion piece also launched an attack on Repubblika, Occupy Justice and the Shift blaming them for the PN defeat.

Labour is determined to stifle all critical voices. The assault is evidently orchestrated. The inappropriate lumping together of an online news platform committed to investigative journalism and a civil society movement championing human rights and democracy which have no links to each other is intended to confuse, misinform and discredit. Labour perceives that now is the time to crush those forces that helped bring down their former leader and which might yet defeat them.

Labour knows that those making relentless efforts to inform the public, to contradict the distorted messaging of Labour’s efficient propaganda machine are their biggest threat to maintaining power indefinitely. Labour knows that those wielding the weapon of truth against government secrecy and lies must be extinguished. The only people who benefit from secret contracts, undisclosed direct orders, covert appointments, secret termination benefits are crooks and cheats.