Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered because she was getting better and better at fulfilling her role, that of Malta’s foremost investigative journalist. Her reporting attracted much hostility, ranging from death threats to a long string of libel procedures, some seemingly instituted with the sole purpose of shutting her up.

Without fear she stood her ground and carried on with the task of uncovering and publicising what appear to be unchecked criminal activities and petty and not so petty corruption and stealing of public funds. She courageously fulfilled a role in the democratic process, that of ensuring a free and effective press to keep in check perceived corrupt and dishonest politicians and business operators.

Whatever crime a citizen might commit, capital punishment does not feature in the laws of Malta. It seems however to feature in the minds of numerous citizens who believe that capital punishment should apply in respect of journalists deemed to have overstepped a limit. Is the murder of the journalist to serve as a sinister warning to whoever dares to criticise and oppose the dismal bad governance inflicted on Malta?

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Corruption and malpractices keep on accumulating with apparent impunity attracting no objection from a Labour majority electorate. Yes indeed, as Daphne cried out, there are crooks everywhere, the situation is desperate.

With surgical precision fundamental institutions, one after another, are being neutralised.  There seems to be no end to the attacks on institutions, to make them adapt to the will of those in power. But hasn’t Malta already been through a similar experience in the past, and years back, has not Malta managed to climb out of deep dark holes dug up by Labour administrations? Did not Malta survive 17 years of dismal Mintoff and Mifsud Bonnici governance?

There are lessons to be learnt from the past, there are patterns of events which do repeat themselves. One major feature we must acknowledge is that Malta has a built-in Labour electoral majority. In cycles, this majority accepts to become a minority. The Nationalist Party does not win elections against Labour, it is a part of the Labour electorate which periodically decides to withdraw support to its politicians.

This it does when faced with a mixture of economic mismanagement, high levels of bad governance, corruption, and violence.  So we witness the Labour Party imploding in 1950, 1958, 1980, 1987 and 1997.  On each occasion, waiting in the wings, the Nationalist Party stood ready to step in, salvage the situation and redirect Malta on a regeneration course, setting sensible and ethical economic and social objectives.

This seems to be the destiny of the PN as, over the years, it persistently, by a wide margin, outperformed Labour on morality, relatively clean governance, minimal corruption and overall competence.  Now is there a future hope, in five, 10 years’ time, that this pattern repeats itself? Can we assume that the Labour government will eventually implode?

Labour can long persist in power particularly when there are plentiful funds and favours to distribute. This generous distribution of benefits will achieve a continued acceptance by the Labour electorate of an inordinately high level of corruption and institution bashing.

There are lessons to be learnt from the past, there are patterns of events which do repeat themselves

However the implosion may come about if the dubious and unsteady foundations of the passport sales scheme and badly administered iGaming and financial services sectors start to wobble.

So, as has happened in the past, will the PN be ready to be favoured by the electorate to assume once more the government of Malta? This is the big question and at the moment the answer to it is a dismal no. Simon Busuttil and his team, against all odds, managed to conserve the support of 137,000 voters. This they did when facing a Labour Party that exploited the power of incumbency (jobs, pay rises, promotions, favours, permits etc.), to Guinness record levels.

Busuttil, and with him all the other leadership members, erred when they opted for a superfast exit from the leadership positions. They should have stayed on longer, at least six months, to supervise a calm and ordered succession exercise.

The party desperately needed time to reflect and re-establish a sense of direction. The party required to wisely decide on the need, or not, for a new leader and team. What happened instead is now history and all the nightmares that haunted Daphne Caruana Galizia have become a reality.

Responses to surveys indicate a disastrous shrinkage by 35,000 votes in the Nationalist Party’s supportbase. This is allowing Labour in government to be more brazen in bad governance and corruption.

I can understand the difficulty to find an experienced politician as clean and labour-attack proof as Busuttil. However I absolutely fail to comprehend the selection for leader of a deficient layman with, thrown in, a professional past that has raised queries, as indicated by an internal party committee.

No convincing clarifications and explanations on this past, have so far been given and libel procedures, which would have cleared up this issue, have been withdrawn.

Daphne Caruana Galizia correctly emphasised that bad governance and corruption cannot be countered except by persons with unblemished integrity.

So what has the future in store for Malta? The future may offer some hope if the Opposition were to sort itself out.  Is it sensible to remain reconciled to the result of a leadership contest, decided by party members, an official invitation to a contestant to withdraw from the race and a notoriously pitiful end result of 7,200 favourable votes, 6,800 unfavourable and over 7,000 abstentions.

It is established that these 7,200 members have, by their choice, already caused a haemorrhage of over 35,000 PN votes.  The PN members of parliament and the MEPs must acknowledge this dire situation and assume their responsibility towards 137,000 PN electors.

They cannot remain passive spectators to the slow asphyxiation of an Opposition.  An Opposition that has risen in the past to face formidable challenges in the interest of Malta. The Labour Prime Minister has made an appeal for a valid Opposition as a necessary feature for a democracy to function. A wake up call has sounded, for whoever wants to hear.