The great thing about history is that you can always count on it repeating itself. So if you missed it the first time, you’ll catch the re-run. Our local Panama story has set me thinking. It has dominated the news for a number of weeks now, and looks like it’s here to stay. The Opposition and other PN hopefuls will see to that. They’ve even taken it overseas.
One could argue that the PN has always been far better at showing up its adversaries and getting political mileage out of a faux pas. That’s their prerogative, of course, now more than ever in Opposition. Yet I suspect that Simon Busuttil has once again resorted to histrionics and overkill, ruining an otherwise perfect opportunity to score political points.
If we’re talking shady, Busuttil had it made... in the shade; wearing a Panama hat no doubt.
Instead we’ve had the usual ‘old’ scenes in front of the law courts with Busuttil and friends (most of them old-hand lawyers, although you wouldn’t have thought so) making a huge fuss about a routine defamation case, with Busuttil threatening to take the case all the way to Europe.
Still, I’m here to pick holes in the government’s – not the Opposition’s – modus operandi. To do that, I’ll have to take you back to the months preceding the 2013 election to remind you all – and especially Joseph Muscat – why the Labour government was elected with such an unprecedented majority.
More pertinently still, I want to remind Muscat how, between 2008 and 2013, the Nationalist Party went from being a united, three-times victorious party to becoming a hugely unpopular and divided one, with a deficit of about 15,000 to 18,000 of its ordinary voters.
In fact, if you compare the political climate in the run-up to that election with today’s, you’ll immediately notice some striking parallels. In both cases you have a major scandal linked to a top-level energy minister with a ‘secret’ bank account and the Opposition’s relentless call for his resignation left unheeded.
Stepping down is the only honourable way out, both for him and the party
For those of you who may have somehow missed the last few years, I am, of course, referring to Austin Gatt’s Swiss bank account and Konrad Mizzi’s more recent Panamanian one. I am aware that while Gatt’s portfolio was valued at roughly €700,000, Mizzi’s was empty; but both were potentially ‘undeclared’. Both ministers insisted there had been no wrongdoing. The PL in opposition huffed and puffed over Gatt, and now PN is huffing a lot more forcefully about Mizzi.
Mizzi pleaded a case of ‘premature undeclaration’, claiming he was still in time; Gatt pleaded forgetfulness; both ministers stayed put. Of course, with Mizzi that might be another premature observation.
Unlike Mizzi, Gatt was politically tired and could hardly be called a swaggering new minister on the block. Gatt also had a few questionable decisions and failed portfolios behind him, while Mizzi, so far, has been the minister responsible for a lot of the good stuff.
And yet, while many rightly questioned Lawrence Gonzi’s defensive shielding of Gatt, the same warranted sort of criticism is being levelled at Muscat. In Muscat’s defence, it might be argued that Mizzi’s empty account and highly promising political record are worth the extra mile.
Even so, there are just too many shady connotations and ugly coincidences for Muscat not yet to have ruled out asking for Mizzi’s resignation. Politics is more about perception than anything else. Once doubt is cast, the die is cast.
The consequences of favouring a political ‘bad apple’ (even if merely tainted and certainly not rotten to the core) is that it creates party rumblings within and the politics of political cliques – a recipe for disaster.
Gatt, of course, was not solely responsible for the downfall of the PN, but his case weakened the party considerably. Until now, Muscat has avoided party meltdown; yet for the first time in three years the PL is experiencing its first political mutterings, and cracks are beginning to show. That’s what happens when you stick out your neck too far.
So let’s compare Mizzi’s non-resignation with Manuel Mallia’s resignation. The latter’s inaccurate statements and ‘chaufferial mismanagement’ were deemed unsalvageable by Muscat. And yet he has major qualms about removing Mizzi who he sees perhaps as a trophy candidate and less dispensable.
There are also rumblings among those who voted PL in 2013. Muscat knows that many people took a chance on him because he promised a new, transparent and unforgiving way of doing politics. He also knows that there were a large number of people who weren’t exactly ready to vote for him but who still wanted him there – people who realised the PN needed a time-out.
I care far less about the implications of Mizzi’s accounts – AUM and ‘Gaffarena’ are more malodorous – than I do about consequences far more upsetting. Someone I know, and with whom I see eye-to-eye on many things, pointed out that Muscat’s own pipe dream of government was Malta’s first real stab at a truly objective and thinking electorate. Unfortunately, the Mizzi furore has completely blown Malta’s chance of detaching itself from old tribal politics. We’re back to the drawing board: back to the old habits, the divisive name calling, the politics of hate.
Which is why I’m so angry with Mizzi and can fully understand why many of his mates want him out. Although, of course, Malta will only truly become a better place when the people who are asking for Mizzi’s resignation today will ask for Gatt’s (or his future equivalent) with the same conviction tomorrow.
Even if we agree that no corruption has taken place, the Mizzi matter raises more questions than it answers, and I do believe that Mizzi has crossed the political rubicon, or a very troublesome political line at any rate. Stepping down is the only honourable way out, both for him and the party.
The fact that he ought to have done it weeks ago should no longer stand in his way.
michelaspiteri@gmail.com