Every electoral campaign has its own set of buzzwords – but these last two weeks and no doubt this next month in the run up to the polls, and probably even beyond that, have been dominated by one word and one word alone:  “establishment.”

A term which had already been used sporadically by the Labour Party’s media and activist wings, particularly when Adrian Delia was ousted as Nationalist Party leader back in 2020, it reared its head again in the past couple of weeks courtesy of Prime Minister Robert Abela.

As discourse turned towards the possibility of the magisterial inquiry into the hospitals deal being concluded, Abela cited this unnamed “establishment” as being at work behind people’s backs.

“The people have to take a clear decision in the sense of whether they will let a small group of people known as the establishment in this country steal the sovereignty of the leadership of the country,” he said.

He went on to imply that it was this establishment which was behind the timing of the conclusion of the magisterial inquiry, as he alleged that it had been purposely timed to do damage to the Labour Party in the run-up to the June elections.

Yet questions to specify who exactly this establishment is were met with various answers.  First it was that the establishment are the people with illicit access to the inquiry, who Abela said were leaking bits and pieces of it as they deemed fit.  Then it was a group of people hell-bent on “destroying Malta”. Then it was a group of people who those who lived in the south were apparently familiar with. Then it was the people who ousted Adrian Delia from the PN leadership.  Then it was the media.  Then it was a group of people with a “lust for power.”  Who knows who it will be next.

The insinuations are enough to arrive at the conclusion that this establishment is certainly – at least in Abela’s mind – no friend to the government; but they’re vague enough for anyone to think that any government critic can be part of this same establishment.

In the meantime, the Nationalist Party has countered Abela’s rhetoric by saying that the establishment is actually the group of people who have been and have abused of power for the last 11 years – the time period that the Labour Party has been in government.

PN leader Bernard Grech said that this establishment had been hell-bent on protecting itself: it opposed a public inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia, it created an atmosphere of impunity that allowed a journalist to be assassinated, and then refused to implement the recommendations of the judges that found that it had created that environment.

Deciphering exactly who Grech was referring to is considerably easier.

Meanwhile, pictures abounded on social media: a picture of Robert Abela in his baseball cap piloting his yacht out of Grand Harbour re-emerged, and a picture of a commemorative plaque commemorating the baptism of his daughter at the Verdala Palace chapel when his father was President of the Republic also re-emerged.  Perhaps it’s the Abela family itself which is part of the establishment all along, those who posted the images argued.

All this talk of who or what the establishment is somehow brings to mind the lyrics of the 2000 rap hit ‘The Real Slim Shady’ by Eminem (yes, it’s not a parallel we thought we’d be drawing either) and begs the question: could the real establishment please stand up?

And in any case – who is the ‘real establishment’ we need to stand up?  It’s the country’s institutions: institutions which have outlasted and will outlast every single President, Prime Minister, Opposition leader, MP, activist and anybody else. They are a fixture – a cornerstone – of the makeup of a just democracy.

These institutions – the courts, the Attorney General, the Police – now have the most important task: ensuring that justice is done where it has to be done, and that those who have to face the consequences of their wrongdoing, face them.

Any failure in this regard will be a failure to the country, to the people, and to the principles which govern a modern day democracy.  The manoeuvres to undermine these institutions are in full force by those who may stand to benefit from them being undermined, Prime Minister Robert Abela being one of them.  Now is the time for these institutions to stand up.