In politics absolute numbers do count but even more the trend lines.

Many times we misunderstand this basic tenet and draw the wrong conclusions.

I’m afraid Robert Abela and his government may be making this mistake, especially after the results of the EP and the local council elections.

They are focusing on the absolute numbers and less on the trends. The absolute numbers say Labour is still ahead of the Nationalists but the trend lines show first of all the decline in Labour’s votes since the 2013 and 2017 elections and also the real picture of the votes obtained in comparison with the absolute numbers of voters including those who abstain and those who vote for candidates not from the two main parties.

Seen like this, Labour’s votes this time are more in danger. From what Abela has been saying and doing I suspect he knows, even if he resists admitting it to himself.

He may be, rather, he is, his own worst enemy. I suspect that when he is coming down the staircase of Castile, he prepares what he will tell the awaiting media once he’s out of the door. The problem is that many times these off-the-cuff remarks have to be corrected later, a sign they were not well thought out.

He comes across as being easily manipulated by those around him and living in a dream world, a bubble.

And weak. After the election results many expected him to carry out a Cabinet reshuffle but he didn’t do this (till the time l’m writing). Each day that passes reveals him as weak and weaker.

Even without a reshuffle he already has problems with key ministers – the Minister for Profligacy, aka Tourism Minister, Clayton Bartolo. And reportedly the new Minister for Health who has been reported as continuing to act as a medic in the Health Service he runs. This repeats what a previous holder of ministerial office, Parliamentary Secretary Mercieca tried to do before he found he had to choose between the political office and his career, and he chose the latter.

I think that past experience has shown us that the Health Service does not take easily to a political overlord from the Health Service.

Then there are those ministers who aspire to replace him if and when he has to go.

Robert Abela has been, ever since he was elected, faced with the Joseph Muscat problem and its consequences. Maybe he contributed to the problem when he denounced the ‘patt imxajtan’ and committed himself to continuity with Muscat.

Now that Muscat and a host of other persons are facing trial, Abela tried his worst to undermine the magistrate, at the same time as claiming to let the institutions work.

At least he did not lead the mob which gathered together in support of Muscat, whether found guilty or not.

The ongoing trials will take a long time, plus eventual appeals. But whoever will be heading the Republic of Malta when the civil process is over must then sue those found guilty to recover whatever may be recovered from the huge millions stolen from our money. The guilty must not be allowed to get away with what they’ve stolen. I have yet to hear this commitment from either party.

The prime minister then must get a grip on the runaway debt mountain which under him and his policies of easy money has been allowed to grow and grow.

Nothing is easy in the best of times. If he was looking for an easy job, he should have stayed with body-building.

[email protected]