They say comparisons are odious. Comparing Malta, a tiny fishpond, to the USA sounds not only odious, but laughably wrong. Yet if Donald Trump, with all his negative attributes, is still leading in the polls to become president of the US, isn’t it natural and obvious to expect Robert Abela and his band to lead in all opinion polls here in Malta?
Makes our seemingly unreasonable stance sound great. As great as an American dream. Or nightmare; but who cares?
Robert Abela’s trust rating is so good here in Malta that, with us being the revered centre of the earth, it would not be too outrageous to deduce that our own prime minister would easily beat the Donald in an election or, at least, in hand-to-hand combat.
Whatever Robert Abela and his government do, whatever horrific stuff they commit, the predictive polls keep giving them a lead in any election to be held in Malta.
Lost in the news – or at least I didn’t see it commented about much – was a wonderful quote from Abela. He said something on these lines:
The courts have an important role in democracy, but Parliament is the highest institution in the country as it reflects the sovereignty of the people's wishes. This is pure lunacy; nightmarish stuff only to be expected from a man not too much in love with real democracy.
Especially worrying is the context of these words. Robert Abela uttered them during the same speech where he praised his predecessor, Joseph Muscat, to high heaven. In other words, or rather in a hidden threat, Abela is saying that the courts might condemn Muscat, but the electorate is the real king.
If Joseph Muscat or any of the rest of the Labour lot are found guilty of any crime, be it fraud, corruption or larceny, once the people are behind the Labour Movement all will be fine. Anything the courts decide can then be overturned by a simple electoral victory or some parliamentary decree.
If the people decide, the courts, the judges, magistrates and all their decisions can go and rot. All will be useless in the land where the electorate can magically change anything, can turn criminals into saints, or rather into Labour heroes.
Robert Abela has recently embraced, or re-embraced, a couple of people who, if Malta was a normal country, would be behind bars or would at least have been investigated for what they did. Instead of fighting on the side of justice, truth and good governance, our prime minister continues subverting the road to true justice.
Yet while this goes on, while Abela pontificates about how good the state of the country is, Malta keeps going to the dogs. People, however, are happy enough with the government led by Abela. Therefore, they are happy with the political idiocy, the institutional incompetence, the traffic madness all over the country, the pollution, the noise, the corruption, the money squandered, the promotion of people with no ability except their political affiliation, the turning of our national broadcaster into a pro-government machine, the desecration of our environment, and a never-ending list of sins of commission and omission.
The people are happy because, as Joseph Muscat once quipped, “I made a rich man of everyone”(sinjur żgħir). All Labour leaders care about is that, or so they imagine, they have made us rich.
Nothing else is important, nothing else needs to be safeguarded. If to reach this point of richness – which is hardly the case for a whole swathe of people – we had to ruin our air quality or our built environment, that is of no consequence. Because by giving us all this perceived richness we, the people who are sovereign, keep applauding the people in power.
If to reach the aim of keeping Labour in power we – or rather the crooks in power – had to lie, reward fraudsters, and cover up for criminals, these are but small sacrifices. In the grand scheme of things, everything is forgivable and quickly forgotten.
The electorate is supreme. All that happens, all that is wrong, can be whitewashed away nicely and conveniently by a resounding vote in the next election.
vc@victorcalleja.com