On 1 May, Robert Abela descended the interior staircase of the Auberge de Castille accompanied by his wife Lydia. Two members of the Armed forces in full regalia stood to attention and opened the glass front door. The Prime Minister walked down the external steps of the Auberge not to welcome a foreign dignitary or engage in any official function but to join Labour's first mass meeting of the election campaign.
Abela had a golden opportunity to demonstrate he's the right man for the Prime Minister's job. Instead he demonstrated his entire unfitness for the role. Getting soldiers in dress uniform to open the doors to the Prime Minister's office for him to address a partisan party event reveals one of two things. Abela either has absolutely no clue of the basic democratic tenet of the separation of state and party. Or worse, he intentionally and brazenly conflates his roles of Prime Minister and party leader to gain partisan political advantage.
The Auberge de Castille is not an extension of Labour's Mile-End headquarters. Castille is the office of the Prime Minister for the specific use of the Prime Minister in his official role and not a springboard for the Labour Party leader to launch his partisan political campaign. The soldiers in Castille are there to perform their duty to the State not to act as poster boys for Labour's propagandistic film footage.
Abela's brazen abuse of Castille and the shameless exploitation of those soldiers demonstrate his entire unfitness for the role of Prime Minister. The man cannot distinguish, let alone separate, his distinct roles of Prime Minister and party leader. He cannot distinguish between State and party. And that explains the rampant abuse of State resources that he has overseen in the short time he's been in power.
For Abela, being in power means he can divert State resources to benefit his party. He believes it's his right to appoint party apparatchiks and loyalists to head State institutions and entities irrespective of their evident lack of competence and ability. He thinks he has every right to use the Department of Information to issue partisan and offensive statements denigrating the opposition. He has no qualms spending millions of taxpayer funds on propagandistic billboards, social media adverts, glossy publications and newspaper adverts. He believes he has a divine right to decide who becomes the Chief Justice, the Standards Commissioner, or the Auditor general. He thinks that his relatively small majority entitles him to use whatever belongs to the people to boost his own political stature.
Abela's total disregard for the separation of state and party has become so normalised that nobody bats an eyelid when he emerged triumphantly out of Castille's front door straight onto the Labour party stand erected on Castille's historic steps to address that mass meeting.
Just days earlier from the same Auberge de Castille, Abela announced that he would advise the President to dissolve parliament and call a general election. But instead of sticking to the script of the neutral Prime Minister of the entire country he shamelessly descended into partisan political campaigning. Abela brazenly concluded what should have been a Prime Ministerial address to the nation with Labour's electoral campaign slogan: "your dream is our project....you are Malta". He even used that official announcement to attack the opposition: "I will be clear, we will act maturely. We will not enter into some political auction where we offer more than the others are offering".
Abela is guilty of using the taxpayer funded official office of the Prime Minister to conduct his partisan party affairs. Just days earlier Abela summoned Roderick Galdes to Castille. Galdes no longer forms part of the executive. The meeting held in Castille between Abela and Galdes had nothing to do with State or government matters. Abela was simply trying to defuse a potentially explosive situation for the Labour party on the eve of a general election. The purpose of that meeting was not to protect the interests of the State or its government. That meeting was explicitly held to ensure that the disgruntled former minister didn't cause more embarrassment for the Labour Party.
The bungling Roderick Galdes didn't even have the good sense of not commenting on the meeting he'd had with the party leader in the Prime Minister's office. He didn't even realise that discussing party affairs and party political strategies in the Office of the Prime Minister is not just entirely inappropriate but an abuse of State resources. But then nobody doubts that Galdes has the same dangerous misconceptions as Abela about what constitutes acceptable behaviour when it comes to State resources and partisan political interests.
The problem isn't just that Abela brazenly uses the Prime Minister's office to conduct political party affairs, it isn't just that he abuses of the offices of state to aggrandise his image of power, it's not just that he steers his office towards party propaganda instead of for the public good. The real problem is that Abela has the same lack of inhibition when it comes to diverting public funds to friends and cronies. He uses State apparatus to hinder and disadvantage the opposition.
He appoints party officials and former MPs to key positions not because of their competence but as rewards for their loyalty or inducements to silence. He squanders millions of taxpayer funds on propagandistic persuasive campaigns and hides the true cost from the public. He believes that it is his right to dominate the state for political advantage. He's resorted to coercive distribution of public funds to buy votes - band clubs, fireworks enthusiasts, carnival afficionados are but a few examples.
Abela's brazen abuse of Castille for his political ends is just the tip of the iceberg. He's diverted massive resources to manipulate public opinion for personal political gain and to secure his party's political supremacy. At the same time he's eroded transparency and harassed civil society organisations who've strived to expose his abuse. He's even threatened and attacked the judiciary. He's insulted and intimidated the media.
Robert Abela hasn't just blurred the line between State and party - he's fused them into one. This election might be the last opportunity for the country to ensure that Castille remains the property of the State not an office of the Labour Party - and that Malta will still belong to all of us.