Nine years ago, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat took over a party that had lost three elections in a row. He set about ditching all the policies that had made Labour unelectable. He adopted market economy, social democratic policies. He embraced the EU.
He won a landslide victory four years ago on the back of public disgust at PN’s oilgate scandal and a visceral feeling that after 25 years of one-party rule the country needed a change from a tired, arrogant and divided Nationalist Party. His promise to stamp out corruption rang a bell with the electorate.
Under his leadership he has registered a number of landmark achievements. Since 2012, GDP has increased by €2.7 billion in four years. Economic growth has risen from 2.6 per cent to 6.7 per cent, albeit this is forecast to reduce slightly to about four per cent over the next two years. GDP per head has grown by over €4,500 since 2012 (standing at over €22,000 per capita). The unemployment rate is the lowest on record and the best in Europe. This is an excellent record to be taking into the general election.
Malta’s prosperity has never been greater and businesses are booming, although there are undoubtedly sectors of the population which have been “left behind”. Those who argue that the Labour government simply inherited a successful economy from its predecessor fail to understand how easy it is for poor stewardship to wreck even a good economy. The success of the last four years is unarguably down to this Labour government.
Tourism has continued steady upward growth. The financial services industry has grown exponentially (but uncertainties lie ahead – see below). For better or worse, the property market is booming and has reached record levels. Business confidence is high.
Long overdue improvements in the field of civil rights have placed Malta alongside the most advanced in Europe. Until a month ago, the government had presided over a number of international summits in Malta, including the arduous and demanding six-month presidency of the EU, with efficiency and effectiveness – albeit the latter has now been undermined by Muscat’s call of an early general election.
Four years after his stunning victory, the shine has gone off Muscat’s promises. It has been a rollercoaster period of undoubted economic achievements, but also littered with broken promises and some of the worst governance and administration witnessed in the last two decades.
One cannot help noticing in the way Joseph Muscat has mishandled the highly suspicious involvement of his two closest advisers in government a creeping hubris in the exercise of power
Muscat promised an end to partisan appointments. Instead, 2013 saw a clean sweep of virtually every previous public appointee, the removal and redeployment of nearly 80 per cent of the permanent secretaries and almost all ambassadorial posts. The cronyism and extreme politicisation of the public service and the gross abuse of “positions of trust” have left the public reeling and dismayed. The pre-election promises of meritocracy were betrayed. The electorate was conned.
Muscat’s campaign promise of Malta Tagħna Lkoll, which had struck such a genuine chord for a new kind of meritocratic and inclusive politics, has proved empty. The levels of maladministration and misgovernment, the likes of which had not been seen here since the 1980s, have led to a succession of scandals which have undermined Malta’s international reputation, tarnished Muscat’s administration and tainted his premiership.
Accountability and due process have been notable by their absence. Too many aspects of operational performance at all levels of the administration have been lamentable. The mandate for change which had attracted so many to support Labour with a landslide victory has been betrayed.
The Gaffarena and Café Premiere incidents (with Muscat personally involved in the latter) showed early on in his administration that the promised high ethical standards in public life to ensure basic trust and confidence in government would not apply or be exercised. Transparent, independent and accountable ethical regulation has not been delivered.
Neither has good administration. To name but a few examples in no particular order. The mishandled and ill-judged separation of planning from environment. A broken-backed and ill-led Planning Authority in hock to the developers and big businesses. A neutered Environmental Resources Authority. The reckless plundering of the environment. The delayed new power station. The appointment of a succession of failed police commissioners. The scandalous coup d’etat against top posts in the Armed Forces of Malta and the recent doling out of promotions on a partisan basis to AFM rank and file. The Auditor General’s report on the government’s hedging agreement with Socar, a company owned by the unsavoury government of Azerbaijan, placed an early spotlight on Konrad Mizzi and his oil-hedging agreement.
The plans for the privatisation of hospitals in Malta and Gozo, in which the hand of Mizzi was also apparent, fed early into the public’s perception of an administration whose key members were on the make – possibly also on the take.
But the issue which has dominated politics for the last year is the Panama Papers scandal, when Muscat’s Minister for Energy and Health (Mizzi) and his chief of staff Keith Schembri were exposed as having opened secret companies in Panama soon after taking up their roles in the new Labour government. Since then, the circumstantial evidence about their intentions and their involvement in other aspects of shady business have given rise to deep suspicion of, at best, malfeasance, at worst corruption.
It is unconscionable that Muscat did not demand a year ago, as a first step, the immediate resignation of the two men directly implicated. He set his face against any talk of resignation by Mizzi on the spurious grounds that nothing technically wrong had been proven. And of Schembri on the specious basis that his is “a position of trust”. Just as oilgate brought down the Gonzi government, Panamagate may well presage the end of Muscat’s.
Muscat has mishandled the Panamagate debacle. The issue has haunted him over the last 12 months and hangs over this election campaign like the sword of Damocles.
He has declared that, if he were to win, matters will be different in his new administration. If he genuinely means this, he should demonstrate that intent now by declaring immediately that there will be no place for Mizzi or Schembri in any future Labour administration.
A stunning majority for Labour four years ago must have led Muscat to feel he was invincible. Today, one cannot help noticing in the way he has mishandled the highly suspicious involvement of his two closest advisers in government a creeping hubris in the exercise of power. Despite his ringside seat at what this did to the Gonzi administration, he finds himself committing the same mistakes.
Next week, an assessment of Simon Busuttil.