ADPD-The Green Party on Saturday said that Maltese politics is riddled with clientelism: politics based on handouts, instead of politics based on rights. Unashamedly we have the Prime Minister Robert Abela, as well as members of parliament and Labour ministers gaslighting the public by playing down the seriousness of the driving licence scandal with their statements, trying to frame what is clear and rampant clientelism as normal and simply 'being close to people'.
ADPD Chairperson Sandra Gauci said "Prime Minister Robert Abela should be ashamed of trying to turn the discourse about clientelism in driving licences by saying that what happened is something normal. Robert Abela is trying to normalise clientelism instead of changing the political system to one where everyone is treated the same. People should be able to obtain what is theirs by right and not through favouritism.”
"The messages exchanged over WhatsApp among Transport Malta officials, several Labour supporters in the secretariat of the Ministry of Transport, Minister Ian Borg, supporters, delegates and Labour canvassers in Transport Malta, the Ministry for Gozo and that of Transport, and even in PBS and in Castile confirm that there is a whole conspiracy to dish out favours. Instead of a politics based on rights we have a politics based on patronage," argued Gauci.
Referring to the Whatsapp messages revealed by Times of Malta, she said that phrases like 'this one came from OPM', 'take care of them', 'make a note against his name, you understand me haha', 'keep a notebook just for these things' show that those involved were well aware that they were engaged in a ‘favours for votes’ secret scheme. They knew they were using their political influence to grant favours. It is disgraceful that the Prime Minister tries to cover this up and is not man enough to admit that this is pure and unabashed clientelism: a corrupt abuse of political power. She insisted that Robert Abela has the strength to change the way politics is done but instead he tells us that for him this conspiracy of favours is normal.
“It seems that it is acceptable for Robert Abela that people who are not yet able to drive are, because of their loyalty to Labour, granted a car licence! It is worth reminding the Prime Minister that a car is also a weapon if used incorrectly. In fact according to NSO figures in 2022 we had 28 deaths on the roads, 19 deaths more than the previous year. We also had 1,341 accidents in which people were injured. One shudders to think that some of those deaths and accidents are the result of institutionalised clientelism with the blessing of the Prime Minister," concluded Gauci.