Almost eight years have passed from Joseph Muscat’s maiden speech as Labour leader to a packed hall at the party headquarters.
The ‘call me Joseph’ speech, which he had delivered not from behind a podium, had set Dr Muscat’s tone as a bridge-builder, open to listening, with an ability to adapt. At that meeting, scores of Labourites, who for some reason or another had felt estranged from the party in the previous two decades, had returned.
Here was a young leader grabbing the party from its hair and pulling it out of the doldrums of yet another election defeat. Acknowledging past mistakes, he projected a fresh image that transcended the party’s traditional boundaries. Labourites believed him and, over the next five years, so did many others.
Dr Muscat gradually distinguished himself by being an able listener, changing tack when it was necessary and, in the process, honing a solid organisation that would eventually deliver an electoral victory of historic proportions.
To say that all this is no more is an overstatement but it certainly risks disappearing if the Prime Minister does nothing to address the Panama affair that has embroiled his chief of staff, Keith Schembri, and Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi.
It is incomprehensible how Dr Muscat, very uncharacteristically, has failed in this instance to understand the problem. It is wrong for a Cabinet minister and a most trusted aide to open companies in a secretive jurisdiction like Panama.
There have been allegations of corruption and possible violation of the law, but what really matters at this stage is that, as public figures, they should have known better. Indeed, the Prime Minister should not have rushed in endorsing their actions by finding nothing wrong as long as the companies were declared. But what is more incomprehensible is the Prime Minister’s apparent stubbornness on this issue.
There have been public warnings by no less than two veteran ministers – Evarist Bartolo and Leo Brincat – for the government not to risk undermining its achievements because of “avoidable mistakes”. Internally, the Prime Minister has also been warned to avoid allowing the Panama affair becoming a millstone around the party’s neck, similar to what the €500 ministerial salary increase was for the Nationalist Party in the last legislature.
Dr Muscat must have been told by well-wishers that removing Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri is the only way to close the Panama chapter. And, yet, the Prime Minister refuses to listen. He continues to act as if nothing has happened, even if the body language betrays his uncomfortableness with the situation.
The same man who stood before Labourites eight years ago with a listening ear, is today ignoring the warning signs. Life will go on as normal, especially after Panama-fatigue kicks in and people start to switch off. Dr Muscat is evidently hedging his bets on this scenario. But this is a road fraught with danger. What if fresh evidence of wrongdoing crops up? What if the ethical dilemma faced now suddenly turns into a legal problem?
Even if no more information surfaces and the independent audits on Dr Mizzi’s and Mr Schembri’s financial arrangements throw up nothing untoward, how will people react each time the minister announces some major deal worth millions of euros?
Dr Muscat at another time would have had anticipated the answers to these questions and acted accordingly to ensure the government’s integrity remained intact.
However, he has chosen a different road. No wonder it has left many in the party baffled. The question is: why?