Oh dear – looks like our gym rat prime minister couldn’t even swat a 78 year old miser.
The prime minister failed to successfully rally the troops and remove Central Bank governor Edward Scicluna from his position. The implications are extremely significant.
While I’m aware you must be sick of reading about this weasel, bear with me for a second. I feel like we need to stick with this for a bit longer, mostly because media coverage of Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting was messy. Dailies were falling over themselves trying to get the inside scoop and ended up amending their stories half a dozen times as the situation evolved. The Scicluna debacle wasn’t the only story that was subject to contradictory reports, either.
A recap.
Remember that nausea-inducing interview from last Thursday? Prime minister Robert Abela used the opportunity to inform the public that Cabinet was set to discuss Scicluna’s future. Abela removed Scicluna from the MFSA’s board of directors. It was clearly implied that the next step was Scicluna’s removal from the Central Bank. We were told that Cabinet would discuss the matter on Tuesday, which was earlier this week.
The problem is that it does not seem like the discussion was an amicable one. NET’s sources claim that “several ministers” opposed Abela’s insistence on axing Scicluna. Three days ago, Times of Malta’s highly questionable Cabinet sources – who seem to throw life jackets for the prime minister more often than they throw out real stories – claimed that Scicluna’s sacking was all but a done deal.
Shortly after the meeting, Cabinet published a vague, lukewarm statement. Translated as accurately as possible, it begins with the following sentence: “the Cabinet of Ministers took note of Professor Edward Scicluna’s request to the President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde to no longer carry out the functions of governor of the Central Bank of Malta as long as his court case remains ongoing.”
The statement adds: “The Cabinet of Ministers recognises that Professor Scicluna’s decision was taken in the nation’s best interest,” before briefly noting that deputy governor Alexander Demarco will be “assuming the functions of governor of the Central Bank in the governor’s absence.”
Several newsrooms then doorstepped Abela outside Castille. The prime minister was quoted saying that Scicluna will be retaining his salary and that his terms of employment “will not change,” which means that either whoever leaked that story about Scicluna’s impending sacking three days ago was lying or Abela did in fact plan to sack Scicluna but was rebuffed by an unconfirmed number of ministers in Cabinet.
There’s more.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Times published a story about the prime minister’s pick for EU Commissioner, Glenn Micallef. The newspaper claimed that, according to its unnamed sources, Micallef’s nomination “ruffled feathers within Labour circles” due to the nominee’s lack of seniority. In public, Cabinet members on their way in to the urgent Castille meeting poured cold water on that story, toeing the party line and expressing performative approval of Abela’s decision.
Within the same day, we witnessed the prime minister’s narrative being pulled apart by undercurrents within his own political party. Twice.
A moment of gargantuan proportions indeed.
Whoever leaked that story to the Times three days ago must have also known that not everyone within the party’s circles was happy about Abela’s decision to sack Scicluna, which means they also knew that leaking information about Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting would influence the narrative as it developed. Three days before that, we had another leak – this time, apparently featuring a WhatsApp message sent by Scicluna himself in a secret Labour Party group.
“They are taking us where they want us to be. The EU’s rules are clear for every European governor. The governor is only asked to resign if he is found guilty of a crime. With all due respect, I will not give in to Bernard Grech’s pressure,” the leaked text allegedly reads, referring to the opposition’s repeated calls for Scicluna’s resignation. Notably, the text seems to have had six ‘thumbs up’ emojis when the screenshot was taken, meaning that there must have been some measure of approval for Scicluna’s argument.
In other words, some sort of agreement with Scicluna’s position was so openly stated that it ended up coming out in the public domain before Abela formally asked Cabinet to support his push to axe him. Abela knew the names and faces behind those ‘thumbs up’ emojis. If the prime minister tried to precondition the narrative so as to coerce Scicluna and the ‘thumbs up’ brigade into falling in line, we can safely say that it backfired spectacularly.
Micallef’s case is also fascinating, as overshadowed as it is with the whole Scicluna mess. A mere few hours apart, we got ministers publicly disavowing what was previously reported as insider talk. Hidden by anonymity, one of Abela’s whispering ministers even went as far as stating that his own prime minister’s decision to nominate Micallef will make Malta “even more irrelevant” in the Brussels sphere. And then they talk about being proud of their country.
Brandishing the Labour Party’s trademark lack of self-awareness, the insider sources quoted in that article also claimed that nobody in Cabinet wanted the role and the scrutiny it brings, not even the ones complaining about Micallef’s lack of seniority, the very same thing which they all have plenty of. And yet, they publicly speak of their nominee in glowing terms, as if they hadn’t just admitted the nomination is a poisoned chalice.
Of course, we saw this coming months ago. Abela’s meltdown after the last elections cemented the feeling that the party is going down in flames and that all the rats are hurriedly scurrying out of the building. The moment in which two Labour MEPs publicly refused to follow orders to endorse Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola as President of the European Parliament was a direct response to Abela’s meltdown. With enough insubordination, even the most top-heavy leaders begin to lose their grip on power.
It seems that the Labour Party’s delegates do have a proclivity for mutiny, after all. Because how else can one explain such gratuitous leaks to the press, all the offhand remarks, the open insubordination, and the steadfast refusals to accept nominations for what would otherwise be coveted positions?
The only plausible explanation is that the knives are out at Mile End, and the leader of the party is fair game.
When doorstepped by journalists on Tuesday, the prime minister tersely claimed that Cabinet backed him “unanimously.”
In the public’s eyes, until Cabinet actually vocalises its opposition towards Abela, this remains true, even if there is the unmistakable sound of whetstones working overtime in the background. And when I say ‘vocalise’, I don’t mean any of this back channel bullshit – I mean an actual motion of no confidence in the prime minister, authored and proposed by one of his own and supported by the rest.
If any of the lot in Cabinet have a shred of dignity left, they know by now that the only way to preserve it is to say what everyone else knows as a fact, out loud and with no hesitation. Even if they are all crooked and their closet is full of skeletons, the survival of the nation is worth far more than whatever price they were bought and paid for.
Edward Scicluna could take a leaf or two out of Ebenezer Scrooge’s book. At least, the latter finds redemption in the end.
Bonus: I got the headline of this piece from the lyrics of this song.
