“How would you like people to describe you?” Robert Abela was asked in the run-up to the Labour Party leadership contest in 2020.  “I am a simple man who enjoys simple things in life,” he replied - simple things such as taking regular escapades on his 50-foot luxury yacht.  “I am always among people in band clubs and village squares,” he added.  “I favour a style of politics which reaches out to most people rather than complex politics”.

Robert Abela had plenty of opportunity to “reach out to most people”.  Instead he’s antagonised the whole nation over his stubborn refusal to hold a public inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia.  He humiliated his own MPs forcing them to vote against that public inquiry, only to suddenly make a screeching U-turn when he finally felt the country’s wrath.

Now that the public inquiry has been published  we know exactly why Abela vehemently opposed it. That public inquiry blamed him for Sofia’s death.

“The picture that emerges from the evidence is the classical comedy of errors.  Jean Paul Sofia died on a site that was not overseen by any regulatory authority. It is a picture of massive errors for which somebody must carry responsibility.  This should be the state, which failed to keep its eyes open for the chaos in the Executive branch, where everybody worked on his own without being accountable to anybody.  Such an attitude is unacceptable and must change immediately,” the report read.

Who was responsible for ensuring the cabinet was not in chaos (tahwid)? Who should ministers be accountable to? Who is the head of the executive? Exactly, Prime Minister Robert Abela.

The Sofia public inquiry, that Abela blocked so obstinately and for so long, left no doubt.  That comedy of errors, those massive errors, that mess in the executive, the lack of accountability amongst ministers that led to Sofia’s death was the responsibility of one man, Robert Abela. It was his abject failure to control his ministers, to restore order to the cabinet that led to the death. And the inquiry board demanded “somebody must carry responsibility”.

Instead Abela came out swinging, shifting blame onto everybody else except himself.  He demanded resignations by the afternoon and threatened to kick out those who refused to resign. His pantomime had one sole objective - to deviate attention from himself, to shift his guilt onto a few scapegoats.  One chairperson, two CEOs and an employee were singled out by the Inquiry Board, Abela insisted. He spelled it out:  “I expect the individuals who were responsible for failures that led to the construction site death of Jean Paul Sofia to contact me by 4.30pm to shoulder responsibility and resign”.   He stopped short of naming names.

That chairperson, those two CEOs, that employee weren’t responsible for the mess in the executive.  They weren’t responsible for ministers’ lack of accountability - Abela was.

Like all grandiose narcissists, Abela never accepts blame.  It’s always somebody else’s fault. Blame-shifting is one of the narcissist’s key characteristics.

He did it again when the Standards Commissioner found him guilty of breaching four articles of the Ministerial code of ethics.  It wasn’t my fault, Abela insisted, I can’t understand why I’m being found guilty.  He refused to apologise.

If you have a narcissist in your life you know that narcissists always have to find somebody else to blame.  They’re never accountable for their actions. They can’t accept responsibility for their own wrongdoing. Their fragile and unstable sense of self prevents them from acknowledging wrongdoing because it amplifies their insecurities, it destroys their self-esteem and sense of grandiosity. The narcissist chooses the easier option - putting the blame on others - every time.

When they’re confronted with their own fatal mistakes their response is rage.  We’ve seen Abela react aggressively, projecting hostility and trying to intimidate reporters, the judiciary, the opposition, the media. He even attacked Jean Paul Sofia’s mother, accusing her of letting others use her.  He claimed that Sofia’s family had been duped.  After forcing his MPs to vote against the inquiry he told Maltatoday that “Sofia’s parents have been led to believe that only a public inquiry can lead to the truth” insisting that only a magisterial inquiry can bring justice.

He peddled the most ridiculous falsehoods once his own MPs started to turn against him.  “A public inquiry is only about publicity and is toothless” Abela lied.

Abela’s gaslighting of Sofia’s mother is typical of narcissists’ response to being confronted with their errors. His attempts to make Isabelle Bonnici accept that the public inquiry was a waste of time, even a hindrance to the investigation and that she was led to believe that he was protecting contractors is classic. You are the crazy one, you’re imagining, you’re wrong and I am right.

His obstinacy and intransigence, despite the advice of his own party members, is another worrying trait of Abela. His grandiose view of himself, his inflated ego prevents him from considering the views of others and adjusting accordingly. His inability to empathise prevents him seeing how his actions affect others.  When he rushed out of parliament after voting down the public inquiry he rudely ignored Sofia’s family and dashed off to enjoy his Girgenti bash.  The following day he escaped on his yacht, oblivious of the hurt and rage he’d caused, even amongst his own MPs.

Those MPs are slowly starting to realise that having a grandiose narcissist for a leader is a major liability. Malcolm Paul Agius Galea regretted voting against the public inquiry. Labour MP Randolph deBattista expressed shame at doing so. In private many more feel deeply embarrassed for having allowed Robert Abela to make them vote against their conscience. Unless they act now this won’t be the last time Abela uses them to protect himself and harm the nation.