The previous day he was in Nicosia for the European summit, rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty (the new Hungarian guy, still waiting to be appointed, was not there). 

All apparently solid in their positions - including Meloni with very unstable junior partners, French president Macron facing a do or die election next year.

In this gathering Robert Abela appeared completely at ease, joking with those around him including Ursula Von Der Leyen.

Then he cut and ran. What scared him off?

Eddie Fenech Adami did the same in 1992. He asked the President to dissolve Parliament while it was still in session. So did Abela. MPs found out they are no longer MPs in mid-speech.

It was like a table set for dinner but the guests rush off with the food still on the table.

Thus ended the second Abela legislature, like the previous one cut off prematurely, aborted before its maturity.

His was among the most solid governments around the EU table. A huge majority in the House, polls predicting another victory. And yet he cut and ran. Not even Starmer (outside the EU) facing local elections next week, a braying Nigel Farage and an internal revolt is this weak.

So why this almighty rush?

I am speculating here. Could it be that the antics of the Nationalists the previous weekend (holding a mass meeting in an alley) showed him how weak his adversaries are? 

Or could it be that the secret polls his party commissioned were showing the Nationalists coming up forcefully threatening an electoral upset?

Let me add a third possibility: we can all see the frenzy of public works that's causing traffic jams all over the island. All Labour majorities (and some other bodies - look at the Bay Square madness in Bugibba) are doing their best to create disruption with good intentions. Could Abela be trying to stem the mad rush that is now out of control?

There are then two imponderables coming from the wider world: the wars over the horizon, on the brink of ending but lingering on. With Malta theoretically neutral but seeing Libyan strongman Haftar meet Abela's predecessor. And planes attacking Iran taking off from Sigonella airfield just over the sea.

But what I count as the most probable cause of this sudden rush: the coming tsunami of rising prices that will bring about the collapse of Miriam Dalli's Mintoffian energy price regime and with it the collapse of the Maltese economy. The EU had already warned this was not on, was against the EU spirit if not against the EU rules. But Abela and Dalli pushed on until it was clear it was unsustainable when the world's economy was changing rapidly. This tsunami will bring down bigger and stronger economies, let alone Malta's.

So undoubtedly with the support of a home kitchen Cabinet that is unparalleled in strategic thinking, the election had to be announced as soon as possible. Potential embarrassments like Roderick Galdes and Clayton Bartolo xhave to be shaken off as one flicks a pesky fly.

What at the end I still cannot fathom is how critical voices like Jason Azzopardi and The Shift had long been predicting an election before June.

It's amazing - after Dom Mintoff no other Labour PM lasted the full term. Must be part of a Labour DNA flaw we never knew existed.

Meanwhile we must also factor this in: though these are early hours this development seems to have injected in new enthusiasm in the Nationalist ranks when they had resigned themselves to another drubbing.

Now as the ritual of elections unfolds we get wall-to-wall coverage on the media till everyone gets drunk on promises and words.

At a far lower level promises and commitments are made and packets of votes change hands. Politics in Malta is far more direct than we think.

Meanwhile the roads remain jammed, building goes on apace, people crowd more and more in this tiny island, debt piles up (according to the ECB Malta's debt is not that overwhelming, rather middle of the table), the island gives an overall impression of dirt and neglect and most people mistake all this activity with being profitable when it could be just loss-making. The three promised hospitals are pie in the sky, so are so many other government plans like Gozo Channel.

This was an administration run on direct orders and promotions for the blue- (rather, red-) eyed boys.

And far from saying 'That was enough', he wants another five years of this confusion and mayhem. 

Offering the country Roderick Galdes and Clayton Bartolo as sacrificial victims hoping the others including him get off Scot-free.

The country doesn't have strategic planning and projects and this election has had to rely on AI because the reality is too bad to face.

Paraphrasing what people who now have repented, they say, from what they did in 1981 and their jibe "Run, rabbit, run" it may now be time to sing "Run, Robert, run".

And as I always say: the Royal Opera House must be rebuilt exactly as it was.

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