We are already well into the second month of this new year and one can safely say that the start of 2017 was but a continuation of 2016 with surreal government stunts that test the people’s tolerance to being taken for a ride to its very limits.
Although the government has now gone one step further: its vicious side has been clearly exposed to the whole country. The demonstration organised by the Nationalist Party, which saw thousands of people venting their frustration against the government’s arrogance, was just the tip of the iceberg.
The notorious protagonist of 2016, Minister at the Office of the Prime Minister Konrad Mizzi resurfaced after a period of hibernation (where he belongs) with a New Year’s video message that smacks of outright arrogance.
Worse still, the Prime Minister supposedly stripped Mizzi of his health and energy portfolio in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal. And yet, with barely a few days into the New Year and Malta’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, Mizzi chairs the Energy Council of Ministers. And now we learn that his wife, Sai Mizzi Liang, is still Malta’s envoy to Asia, salaried at €13,000 monthly.
His colleague, the Prime Minister, maintained his silence for a year, despite being accused of being the owner of Egrant, until the eve of a visit by the Pana Committee to Malta, when Brian Tonna declared that Egrant was his. Of course, no one believes him. If Egrant belonged to Tonna, he would have had no reason to be discreet about it, and send details via Skype instead of using email as he did in Mizzi’s and Keith Schembri’s case.
Mizzi’s successor as Labour deputy leader, Economy Minister Chris Cardona took exception to a story on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s blog about an alleged visit to a brothel in Germany. Instead of filing libel suits as politicians and other individuals who feel aggrieved by a story published in the press do, he took the extreme measure of filing precautionary warrants, together with libel suits, against Caruana Galizia.
One would expect a politician to understand that such a measure has serious implications to freedom of the press in Malta. Cardona’s undemocratic measures drew widespread criticism from leading international organisations, including the European Federation of Journalists as well as from the European Parliament; so much for being ‘the best in Europe’.
Following Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil’s promise that a future Nationalist government would remove criminal libel and garnishee orders against journalists, the government had no choice but to follow, with one stark difference: the government plans to breathe further down journalists’ necks – as is its plan to force ‘news’ websites to register with its Department of Information.
No wonder that Ġorġ Mallia, head of Department of Media and Communications at the University of Malta, University student organisations and the Nationalist Party ripped the government’s plans to shreds.
The government’s vicious side is now clear to the whole country. Through Cardona’s extreme action, and the government’s plans to force ‘news’ websites to register with its Department of Information, the Muscat administration declared war on the free press. The public’s patience has been severely tested.
The public’s patience is also being tested when it comes to fuels. The much touted “price stability” evaporated on January 3 when we were faced with a hefty increase in petrol and diesel prices. People are neither stupid, nor cut off from the rest of the world.
As consumers in other countries benefited from low prices throughout last year, the government ignored calls from many constituted bodies and our prices remained unchanged (or ‘stable’ in government spin speak). To add insult to injury, this spike in fuel prices was announced right at the same time that households in Mizzi’s constituency received a propaganda calendar bragging about stability in fuel prices. But then again, Mizzi is taking his cue from his boss, the Prime Minister.
After Joseph Muscat refused to publish major contracts that had been left secret, a few days ago he ‘published’ the power station contracts – blackening out the most salient articles of the agreement.
To add insult to injury, the government announced that it will appoint a new board at the Lands Authority and Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco, who in 2014 escaped impeachment only due to his retirement from the Bench, will chair it.
No shame, really.
You may hide behind an economy that is ticking nicely. You may not care to see or understand people’s anger for your government’s actions. But people are watching you closely, Mr Prime Minister, and they are angry – very angry.
Alessia Psaila Zammit is a lawyer, deputy mayor of Siġġiewi and a PN election candidate on the sixth district.