To say that Robert Abela's five years as Prime Minister have been eventful would be an understatement.
From the Covid-19 pandemic to economic success, there have been positives - but many will say that those positives have been outweighed by the scandals, the inquiries, the court dramas, and at times, the Prime Minister's own behaviour.
The Malta Independent on Sunday sums up Abela's five years in five points.

A global pandemic
Having taken the seat of power in January 2020, Abela was not afforded anything close to a honeymoon period which allowed him to settle.
It was 7 March 2020 when the first case of Coronavirus - which later became known as Covid-19 - was found on Maltese shores, presenting Abela and his administration with what could be a generation-defining challenge.
News reels of lines and lines of coffins in countries such as Italy had many prepared for the worst as the Maltese government announced a series of measures in a bid to combat the spread of the disease, and salvage the country's economy. The number of Covid-19 cases spiked and dipped over the following months, with the government responding accordingly - a response which was praised by the World Health Organisation at the time.
Malta was also the first country in Europe to start vaccinating its population against the virus, and likewise the first country in Europe to reach the benchmark of having a 70% vaccination rate - the benchmark generally associated with reaching herd immunity.
It wasn't a period which was without controversy: Abela's administration came under scrutiny for allowing rave parties, one of which ended up being associated with a late-summer spike in case numbers - but on the whole, Malta was roundly praised for how it responded to the pandemic.

Electoral triumphs and shocks
The last five years were something of a mixed bag in terms of elections for Robert Abela - sure the Labour Party won all three of the elections which took place during this period, but there's more to it than that.
The general election in 2022 was to be the first proper public litmus test for Abela. Since he was elected as Labour Party leader and, by extension, Prime Minister, by the members of his own party, Abela was enthusiastic to achieve a mandate of his own in a general election.
That he did in March 2022, having beaten away speculation that he would call the election earlier than scheduled, as the Labour Party came away with a victory of 39,474 votes over the Nationalist Party.
It was a victory which granted Abela's leadership legitimacy, even within his own party: up until this point he had been running the country on the mandate left to him by his predecessor Joseph Muscat.
The story a little over two years later however was very different. The PL emerged victorious from the European Parliament elections with a victory margin that had been slashed to just 8,454 votes - a result which very few had predicted. The PL's 20,255 vote margin of victory in the parallel-held local councils election did little to soften the blow.
Suddenly, the PL's ironclad margin of victory, which many thought to be insurmountable for the foreseeable future, had dissipated.
The shock was palpable among PL delegates even at the Counting Hall in Naxxar, and the fact that Abela's presence there as votes were being counted was limited to just a victory lap after the European Parliament election results were announced by the party left a bitter taste.
Talk of internal strife and division within the party soon began to emerge - talk which continues, albeit to a lesser degree, even today.
Abela's reaction was to admit that voters had sent the PL a message, and what followed was a clean sweep of the party's top roles as every single person in the party hierarchy from the two Deputy Leaders downwards was changed.

'It's the economy, stupid'
That famous James Carville quote from the 1992 US elections has run through in the PL's strategy over the last 12 years. Indeed, the biggest positive to draw from the PL's administration has been the country's economic performance - and that continued under Abela's leadership.
The Covid-19 pandemic was the biggest economic challenge the world faced probably since the Second World War and while other countries plunged deep into recessions, Abela's government managed to keep the ship reasonably steady.
Unemployment remained comparatively low, and the vast majority of businesses were offered the necessary support to be able to keep operating.
Economic recovery was the order of the day as the pandemic subsided, and there was strong progress as Malta continued where it left off prior to the pandemic by topping European charts for economic growth and for having record low unemployment levels.
More economic shocks hit Europe owing to the outbreak of war in Ukraine, which resulted in higher inflation across many countries, with Malta not being spared.
Subsidies were introduced to keep utility prices and fuel prices the same, a fund was introduced to help grain importers, a price cap was introduced on certain basic day-to-day products, and a new cost of living allowance mechanism was introduced for low-income households.
It came at a financial cost to the government of course, so much so that the country's debt has doubled from €5 billion at the start of Abela's tenure, to more than €10 billion now.
It's this strong economic performance that has further allowed the government to introduce measures such as a newly improved minimum wage and an income tax cut - measures which are important, because for many at the end of the day it's what's left in the pocket that counts.

Problems of his predecessor's making, problems of his own making
Despite the pandemic recovery and despite the economic success, Abela's leadership has not been without its problems. Some problems were of his predecessor's making, some were his own faults.
Abela's first problem to handle was moving himself away from the legacy of Joseph Muscat. His first Cabinet did away with people such as Chris Cardona and Konrad Mizzi, and in June, he led proceedings for Mizzi - Muscat's former star minister - to be booted out of the PL altogether.
But there were greater issues on the horizon for Abela to face - namely one pretty big one: the Steward Healthcare hospitals concession.
Not only was this deal, which was brokered under the Muscat administration, cancelled by a court, but it was deemed to be fraudulent. It was a blow to Abela, but a renewed blow came in April this year when Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi, Chris Fearne, and Edward Scicluna amongst many others were criminally charged in connection with the deal.
It was an indelible black mark not just against Muscat, but against the Labour government as a whole. What made it worse was Abela's reaction to it.
He railed against a nameless 'establishment' which included everyone from the Nationalist Party, to the inquiring magistrate, to civil society, and to the media, as he questioned the timing of the conclusion of the magisterial inquiry into the deal, its cost, and how it had reached certain conclusions.
Party supporters meanwhile took to the law courts themselves to celebrate Muscat on the day that he was to face his charges for the first time. On one hand Abela appealed for everyone to act responsibly; on the other hand he claimed that the Nationalist Party was setting a "trap" for PL supporters.
Months later, Abela would admit that he could have been more cautious in his words - but the damage had been done. Many believed that his handling of the matter was a significant contributory factor to the PL's loss of support in the European Parliament elections.
But there were other problems too. The consequences of Malta's economic success were starting to bite: the country's population kept on increasing as foreign workers arrived in their thousands, and with it, the public discontent began to fester as well.
Increasing the workforce was at the core of the PL's economic model ever since it got elected, and the country's population increased by some 20,000 people in 2019 - Muscat's last year in power. When Abela took over, it remained the same story: net migration surpassed 20,000 people in both 2022 and 2023.
It was a ticking time bomb and while Abela and some government ministers spoke about the need for an economic model shift for months - these things don't happen overnight. Discontent over the consequences of population increase mounted, and with it Abela's popularity in the public eye started to wilt as traffic issues mounted and pressure on the infrastructure increased, resulting in, among other things, a spate of nationwide power cuts in the summer of 2023.

Resignations, inquiries and u-turns
What hasn't helped Abela, however, is his government's quickly deteriorating track record on good governance.
Make no mistake: the Abela administration has introduced several pieces of legislation that have actually improved the rule of law in the last five years. From how the Police Commissioner is appointed, to how the President is appointed, to even how members of the judiciary are appointed - these have all been reformed in such a manner that power was actually been shorn away from the Office of the Prime Minister.
But Abela's time in power has been beset by u-turns, resignations, and inquiries.
The PL has had 11 high-profile resignations - most forced - as a result of scandals during it's almost 12 years in power. Seven of them came while Robert Abela was Prime Minister.
In Chris Fearne's case, Abela begged him to stay on and was rebuffed by Fearne himself. In Rosianne Cutajar's case, he first threatened to kick her out of the parliamentary group only to let her back in little over a year later - with even his request for an apology ignored. In Clayton Bartolo's case, he resisted and resisted calls for the minister's resignation over an ethics breach only to have him step down after a new scandal emerged.
Then there were the scandals. These weren't scandals on the grand scale of the Panama Papers or the Vitals hospitals concession fraud - but for many they hit closer to home. Abela's administration has faced scandals or inquiries on things ranging from social benefits fraud, fake identity cards, and a LESA racket. More recently, we have come to know that the conclusion of another magisterial inquiry, into the company known as 17 Black, is to lead to more arraignments of former Labour exponents.
What many have noted however is the way in which Abela has responded to such events, with many, including those close to home, criticising his indecisiveness and his u-turns.
Nothing embodied this more than his reaction to calls for a public inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia - a 20-year-old who died in a construction collapse in December 2022. His mother Isabelle Bonnici and a growing civil society front had long demanded a public inquiry, but Abela consistently refused to appoint one.
It all came to a head as Abela and his whole parliamentary group voted against the setting up of a public inquiry in Parliament. But by then Bonnici had become the face symbolising a sense of civil resistance against a government which many perceived to be in cahoots with the construction industry.
Faced with a protest numbering in the thousands outside the doorstep of his office just a couple of days later, Abela finally relented and changed his mind. The damage on his standing as leader, however, had been done - and it won't be a matter forgotten any time soon.