FOLLOWER UPDATE (article begins further below): I apologise to my loyal readers for missing a few days of commentary. Given the rapid evolution of this past week’s major stories, it was hard to pinpoint where to contain the parameters of individual pieces that always risk becoming outdated within hours.
Besides struggling to keep up with an avalanche of bad news, I also devoted much of my time to long-term projects, some of which have blown past their original deadline. There are others in which I am trying to get ahead of schedule. I also needed to take some time to make sense of a few professional and personal matters which required my attention.
I appreciate your patience, your readership, and your support in these remarkably unfriendly times.
To make up for these past few days, here’s my commentary about this week’s major stories, straight from the notepad.
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Towards the end of 2023, nobody believed me when I said that both the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party are entering their twilight years.
I hasten to add that, a year and a half later, it is still unlikely that anyone would believe such a grim prognosis. Undeterred as always by the livid reviews this website receives from Mile End and Dar Ċentrali, I regret to inform that particular demographic that I am now even more confident of this assessment.
Spurned by its biggest rockstar, the Nationalist Party certainly seems like it’s out for the count. After four days of palpable tension, president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola confirmed that she does not want to become the Nationalist Party’s new leader.
The Labour Party’s inevitable implosion, on the other hand, is a much tougher sell. People truly look at you like you’ve lost it whenever you pointedly insist that the prime minister’s grip over his party of cackling hyenas is just as tenuous.
Ironically, prime minister Robert Abela exhibited a remarkable degree of self-awareness on this subject.
During his usual Sunday sermon, Abela warned the faithful to avoid falling over themselves as they celebrate the Nationalist Party’s rudderless vessel hitting an iceberg just outside Brussels’ coastal waters.
Doing his very best to hide the relief at no longer needing to worry about facing off with Metsola, Abela claimed he takes no pleasure in watching the Nationalist Party scramble to figure out who’s going to replace outgoing leader Bernard Grech.
Tellingly, the prime minister was keen to emphasise that the major parties were responsible for Malta’s progress in six decades of taking turns at running the government. He then uses this historical gloss-over to claim that, given the ongoing “chaos” within the Nationalist Party’s ranks, the responsibility to continue that progress now falls squarely upon the Labour Party’s shoulders.
The unspoken implication is that without the Nationalist Party serving as a convenient scapegoat for the problems that the government claims it is unable to address, the government’s own glaring flaws will be left dancing naked in the wind, exposed for all to see and with no obvious bogeyman in sight.
Meanwhile over at Dar Ċentrali, which now seems to serve more as an expensive reminder of the Nationalist Party’s financial straits than anything else, the smell of disappointment seems to be seeping into everyone’s nostrils.
In the last column I published before this one, I explored the depths of the dilemma that Roberta Metsola faced when Bernard Grech abruptly resigned, forcing her to decide whether she was up for a knife fight or whether she would keep walking the gilded halls of Brussels’ power corridors.
Though I’m partial to making pattern-based predictions every now and then, I didn’t venture as far as making a conclusive guess about what choice she would end up making. Now that it’s been made amply clear the Nationalist Party will have to draw from among the rank and file to elect a new leader, I’ll limit myself to delving into how Metsola justified her decision-making process and the implications of it all.
Briefly explained, she described how she felt like she could not just “abandon” the responsibility she assumed as president halfway through her tenure. Metsola seemed keen to emphasise that she tried her best to find a strategy that works within those constraints, stressing that she wants to continue serving her party and her country.
After years of failed attempts at securing Metsola’s commitment to the role of party leader and star challenger for the prime minister’s seat, this latest snub seems to have struck a raw nerve within the party’s shriveling supporter base.
The minute Metsola’s statement began to circulate, accusations of abandonment and “political fraud” almost immediately began to make the rounds.
I won’t presume to know what it’s like to make a decision of that magnitude, with such exclusive interests tugging in different directions, all vying for your undivided attention. But I can guess what this is going to lead to.
The fact is that the only way that the Nationalist Party was ever going to have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the next elections was with Metsola at the helm. The psychological blow from being refused by their obvious lead candidate will prove to be deadly for the party’s morale, irrespective of the personal, moral, and pragmatic considerations she also needed to factor in when making that call.
To date, the only credible alternative that was named in press reports is Mark Anthony Sammut, who was initially careful to sidestep any suggestion that he was interested in the leader’s role until Metsola backed out.
While all speculation remains theoretical until the leadership election actually begins, it is almost impossible to shake off the feeling that Metsola’s choice will inevitably spell doom for the party that propelled her to political stardom.
Of course, it is entirely understandable that Metsola wishes to cross off as many agenda items as possible before it’s time to vacate the office she occupies. One can only hope that she means what she says when she waxes lyrical about being a dutiful politician.
Having said that, the cold hard logic of the EU dictates that, had she taken the plunge, someone else would have been able to take up the presidency of the European Parliament. After all, if there’s one thing that there’s no shortage of in Strasbourg, it’s bureaucrats who want bigger portfolios.
Though I’m sure her colleagues in Parliament would not be thrilled about losing their top diplomat in the chamber to a domestic crisis in Malta, they would not be as stranded as the Nationalist Party is now while it scrambles to find a replacement.
Replacing the high-flying Metsola would have certainly been a challenging task for her colleagues, especially in such a fraught geopolitical landscape. Replacing Metsola as the Nationalist Party’s next leader with someone of a similar profile will be next to impossible. By the time that happens, there will be no Nationalist Party left to talk about.
In essence, what we are left with here is a government that is desperately trying not to fall asleep at the wheel after the biggest corruption bender in the history of the country and an opposition that is going to continue hemorrhaging until there is nothing left to bleed.
If you want a prime example of just how bad things are, simply look at how both major parties responded to what could have been the most fatal apartment complex collapse in modern history.
Up until publication time, the prime minister hadn’t publicly acknowledged the collapse. Instead, construction minister Jonathan Attard was sent to take the flak and parrot empty words about the government’s “ongoing efforts” to reform the construction industry.
Though you can expect the press to hound the prime minister for a comment about it later today when Parliament reconvenes, the fact that the prime minister was not at hand to directly address the nation after such an event speaks volumes about the level of detachment.
Here we were, reading news reports about screaming tourists who saw so much dust when the building collapsed that they thought a large building must have caught fire, and the prime minister was nowhere to be seen. Though there are some flickers of individual conscience, few among the opposition afford to put up serious resistance against the government’s tolerance of the developer lobby’s reckless conduct.
What we are left with is a silence that fits a walkover at a graveyard, which is more or less what Paceville would have become if it weren’t for the timely intervention of a few professionals who saw danger and successfully managed to prevent an unthinkable tragedy.
I almost fear to seriously dream of a future which is devoid of both the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party. Their presence in Malta’s political landscape is so ubiquitous that it’s hard to imagine what it would be like without their toxic entitlement poisoning every airway.
Though I hesitate to tantalise myself with that particular prospect, it’s clear that the major parties weren’t just responsible for Malta’s progress, as the prime minister would like you to believe.
They are also responsible for the gross policy and enforcement shortcomings that enable the kind of disingenuous and unprofessional conduct that reigns supreme in the construction industry. They are responsible for creating a climate that favours wealthy rule-breakers at the expense of everyone else.
This collapse, like the dozens of other collapses that occurred before it and the ones which are inevitably going to happen in the near future, is the direct result of decades of impunity, proudly sponsored by the major parties and their elite donors.
You can lie all you want about how you are promising change – when the time comes, people won’t remember empty promises. They’ll remember streets full of rubble, broken power grids, endless construction sites, and shrinking countryside.
The duopoly is cracking beneath the weight of its own inadequacy.