Robert Abela has for long been trying to distance himself from Joseph Muscat.

He does not do it openly, and would never admit it if he were to be asked, but the decisions he has taken send the message that he is his own man. Or at least tries to be.

Just look at Abela’s Cabinet of Ministers to get an idea. He started shifting away from Muscat when he replaced him in 2020, and went further with his new team after the 2022 election, where he was also helped by the way people voted.

Only four of the appointees selected by Muscat in 2013 remain as part of the Robert Abela Cabinet and three of them were parliamentary secretaries when Labour took over the reins of the country from the Nationalists. Ian Borg, Roderick Galdes and Owen Bonnici were given a junior minister position by Muscat. Only veteran Anton Refalo, appointed by Muscat as a minister in 2013, retains the role.

In his 30 months as Prime Minister, Abela has always been between a rock and a hard place when it comes to Muscat.

Abela knows that the Labour grassroots do not see him in the same way that they see Muscat. For the Labour core, Muscat remains on the highest pedestal in their political thoughts and nothing would budge them from believing that he never put a foot wrong. They will always remember Muscat as the one who gave the Labour Party consecutive massive electoral victories, be they national, local or for MEPs.

It doesn’t matter, to them, that Muscat was forced to resign in the wake of developments related to the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and that he was named as man of the year for corruption and organised crime in 2019. For them, Muscat was, is, and will remain, an idol.

So Abela will be looking for trouble if he is seen to denounce Muscat, and he will never do it. Given a choice, the great majority of Labourites will always choose Muscat over Abela. Having said this, Abela has spent most of his time as Prime Minister trying to make up for the faults and shortcomings of the Muscat administration, the most notable of which was the grey-listing by the Financial Action Task Force.

That dishonour fell during Abela’s reign, but it happened because of what had accumulated under Muscat. It was Abela who had to face the music, not Muscat. Then, for a whole year, Abela scrambled to carry out changes that were deemed to have been enough for Malta to be taken off the grey list.

But problems remain. Only this week, a European Commission report has again reprimanded Malta for its inability to deal with high-level corruption in an expeditious and efficient way. Investigations into high-level corruption remain lengthy, the report says, recommending that procedures are reformed to improve efficiency.

To be fair, that our courts of law are slow is a subject that has been debated for decades, and successive administrations have tried to take corrective action. The progress, however, has been negligible, if there has been any.

Then, when high-profile cases, including those in connection with the murder of Caruana Galizia, take so long for a conclusion to be reached, the frustration grows. And it grows even more when you hear the police commissioner almost at a loss to explain what is happening in certain police investigations, getting the impression that, even here, a snail would be moving faster.

Institutions – not only the law courts and the police – have often let us down. Only a limited few have served their role well. This is all a result of the type of culture that started under the Muscat administration, one which cannot be easily changed now as it became quickly ingrained in our ways, spreading from top to the lowest rungs of our society.

This is why Abela is facing an uphill battle. Trying to find a balance between undoing what Muscat did (without saying that he is doing so) and retaining the following of the Labour grassroots where Muscat is still revered is not easy.

It becomes even more difficult when Muscat keeps taking centre stage, or at least attempting to, such us via his recent appointment in the Maltese football network even though half of the clubs involved do not want him, or when he comes up with ludicrous statements, such as his recent comment that “Daphne was becoming irrelevant” when she was killed.

Muscat’s new foothold in sports, and the way he continues to be present, is a shadow that looms large over Abela.

Abela wants to get rid of it, but knows it’s an impossible task.