I met a well-meaning someone the other day who told me that things were moving very quickly on the Panama matter, and that I should refrain from trying to guess what might happen next. She had in mind my last column, in which I predicted that Konrad Mizzi would be gone by the time the Sunday papers were out.
Certainly she was right about the pace of revelations and outcomes. The latest involve a round of frightfully-damning e-mails sent on Mizzi’s behalf, and the Opposition’s call of a vote of no-confidence in Parliament tomorrow.
And yet the Prime Minister has now dug his heels in. Bar a copy of a bank transfer acknowledgement for a cool hundred million to an account in Panama held by one J. Muscat, it is clear the man will not budge. As for Mizzi, his brass neck is beneath comment.
It is now down to tactics and political expediency. Outrageously enough, the government cabal appear to have decided that this is a tiresome matter of political strategy. As far as they’re concerned, the Panama Papers are simply the 2016 version of Tonio Fenech’s arloġġ tal-lira.
I use the word ‘cabal’, because there have been some dissenting voices – most notably those of Alfred Sant, Evarist Bartolo and Godfrey Farrugia, all of who have said that Mizzi should have the decency to resign (or, by implication, the Prime Minister the decency to fire him). Not since the last months of Lawrence Gonzi’s government had we seen such dissent.
In light of this, the decision by the Opposition to call a vote of no-confidence in Parliament tomorrow is odd to say the least. I don’t imagine that even the most optimistic members of the Opposition think there is the slightest chance the vote will go against the government.
The obvious question is why anyone should propose a vote they are certain to lose, but there’s more. First, the vote does battle with government on its surest and strongest-held terrain. Save for one or two loose cannon that are already accounted for, the Parliamentary group is in many ways the easiest for the Prime Minister to bring to heel.
We’re told that the two independent members of the House will be voting against the government, but there are no raised eyebrows there. Marlene Farrugia’s vote will not surprise anyone who hasn’t been living on another planet for the past two years. As for Giovanna Debono, she’s about as independent and as unpredictable as an 18th-century singing automaton.
The second reason why the vote is a bad decision by the Opposition is that it presents a chance for the Prime Minister to rally the troops. It is one he is highly unlikely to overlook or pass up.
The vote presents a chance for the Prime Minister to rally the troops. It is one he is highly unlikely to overlook or pass up
The Opposition’s best ally was disarray, and the corresponding chance that stray comments would stack up to dissent. That is exactly what was going on last week, what with the Prime Minister out of the country and members of government posting unguarded comments on Facebook or being doorstepped to the point of blasphemy.
The vote calls an end to all of that, at least for the time being. Unwittingly, it presents a chance for the Prime Minister to take stock of the situation and bring back to the fold any stragglers there might be, in a structured and controllable way that is infinitely more secure than off-the-cuff comments to journalists and online poetry.
It’s clear he has already seen his chance, and it’s also clear he knows he will win the vote, and with it the confidence of the highest institution in the country – as it happens, also a wonderful thing to be able to display to the foreign press. Joseph Muscat must be salivating at the headlines-in-the-making: ‘Maltese government wins crucial vote of confidence in Parliament over the Panama papers’.
No questioning that one, especially since he’s already said he hopes Simon Busuttil will respect the outcome of the vote. Let’s call it a chance for the Prime Minister to dazzle us with a democracy blaze, and one that was served to him by the Opposition on a silver platter.
Muscat told us the other day that he is eating well and working out regularly. I’m beginning to suspect there may be other ways in which he plans to pull a Muhammad Ali on us. I have in mind the rope-a-dope, that game plan of legend in which Ali leaned back on the ropes and let George Foreman pound him for the best part of seven rounds (the first was won clean by Ali). It looked like a beating, except Ali was winning all along.
This may well be Muscat’s strategy, to keep as low a profile as possible and let the Opposition punch itself out and make serious mistakes in the process. If it works, Muscat will have survived one of the biggest crises of recent Maltese political history.
There is, however, a snag. If Muscat does indeed survive without the need to fire anyone (and it’s beginning to appear he may well do so), he would have to face the electorate in 2018 with a gigantic seabird called Konrad Schembri around his neck. Think of it as rubbery legs, a pulped liver, and three cracked ribs in Round 8.
mafalzon@hotmail.com