As I write, the Panama matter has three protagonists: Konrad Mizzi, the Prime Minister, and Simon Busuttil and the Nationalist Party generally. Wednesday’s circus in Valletta was a mistake, for three reasons. First, the notion that the case against Jason Azzopardi was some major affront to democracy was rubbish.
Whether or not he was right to take offence, Peter Paul Zammit had every right to take the matter to court. It would actually have been undemocratic for the Prime Minister to try to stop him from doing so.
Second, the Nationalist Party ended up interrupting the enemy while he made a mistake. The crowd of baying diehards aside, Azzopardi’s martyrdom was nowhere near people’s minds last week. Which means the Nationalist Party engineered its own unwanted distraction.
Third, the point that Muscat had taken the country back 35 years was stretched, to put it mildly. Thirty-five years ago, Azzopardi would have had his face smashed in. The placards waved outside the law courts would have ended up in some very dark places. This obsession with history repeating itself is unhealthy for the Nationalist Party. The last thing Busuttil needs is for him to appear that he will do anything to trip up the government. Eddie Fenech Adami got away with it, but only because he was robbed of an election, among other real threats to democracy.
On to the next protagonist. The fact that Mizzi’s downfall came from Panama, rather than from some shady deal with a petrol station owner and lion tamer of Qormi, is entirely consonant with his profile.
Mizzi built a career in Maltese politics by being above it all and making a spectacle of it. He was conjured up out of nowhere with very little if any baggage. The usual clannish family connections were absent or made to seem incidental, and he hadn’t worked his way up through the ranks of the Labour Youth Forum (FŻL) or the party press machine.
That meant he was able to locate himself as a stranger to the staple local networks of patronage and familiarity. Which is also why he proved such a godsend to Muscat and a key contributor to the Labour victory of 2013. His lack of biography made him acceptable to the kind of voter who wanted a new chapter that departed from the usual round of musical chairs. He was paraded as someone who had made good on his own steam, and who was now drawn to the Moviment purely on bona fide grounds.
He speaks in English, or in a mixture of English and Maltese, in his public appearances. He also has a Chinese wife and very little of the usual patronising chumminess that is so typical of Maltese politicians. Terms like ‘work ethic’, ‘we deliver’, and ‘time frame’ are punctuation to him. He’s also big on general global babble.
I sort of believe Konrad Mizzi when he says that he has very little money in Panama. I also believe he wasn’t planning on any backhanders coming his way
I sort of believe Mizzi when he says that he has very little money in Panama. I also believe he wasn’t planning on any backhanders coming his way.
Given his leanings, it’s plausible to imagine that Mizzi was seduced into the twisted but glamorous world of offshore money by people close to him. The first and obvious role model is Keith Schembri. The second is Sai Mizzi.
Mizzi’s personal relationship with his wife is of no interest to me. I only mention her because he did, in his speech last Thursday. Astonishingly, he said that Ms Mizzi had often told him that she found nothing wrong at all about the whole thing. At which point Lady Macbeth came to mind, but no matter.
None of this absolves him of political wrongdoing, of course. On the contrary, it nails him as an impressionable and easily-swayed man, certainly not one to be trusted with some of the country’s top responsibilities. The fact remains that he set up structures that, in principle, made it possible for him to stack away money in complete secrecy. Politically, Mizzi is dead.
Which leaves us with the Prime Minister. My reading is that he was overtaken by events. There were four reasons why he didn’t fire Mizzi when Panamagate broke out several weeks ago.
First, Mizzi was and is part of his composite Moviment image. Second, the government can scarcely afford another high-profile loss. Third, the implication would have been that Daphne Caruana Galizia calls the shots. Fourth, Muscat thought that Panamagate would simply fizzle out after a couple of weeks, and that he could simply sit it out.
Only for reasons we know well, the opposite happened. As I write, it is clear that Muscat is trying to figure out how to jettison Mizzi with as little political damage as possible. He is painfully aware that much of the damage has already been done, in many ways.
The Panama matter has seriously dented his image as someone who could deal with the messiest of situations and come out largely unscathed. It has wrought havoc among those beloved 36,000. It has also re-energised the Nationalist Party and provided it with a tangible and credible cause. Żonqor was a non-starter, and Gaffarena did not make it to the BBC headlines.
Chances are that by the time this goes to press, Mizzi will have gone. Busuttil will be secure in the knowledge that the Opposition matters after all. As for the Prime Minister, he will have learnt that reshuffles are not necessarily spectacles of power and control. Sometimes, and especially when one dithers and tries to buy time for a lost cause, they end up being quite the opposite.
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