WHY MALTA NEEDS AN ALTERNATIVE TO REPUBBLIKA

by a Blog Writer

International political corruption is nothing new but the current lack of shame when corruption is exposed in Malta is highly troubling. From Watergate to South Africa’s Gupta family scandal, most international corruption cases happen too far away from Malta. Closer to our awareness and consciousness were the FIFA corruption scandal, and the Panama Papers which showed prominent Maltese personalities hiding money from tax authorities. Confined to Maltese shores up to 2013 were much smaller scandals such as the gifting of an expensive clock, to a Nationalist MP building a larger swimming pool on his property than was allowed by the original building permit. Trivial as they may be in comparison to today’s scandals in Malta, they hobbled the Nationalist campaign in 2013 and ushered in a Labour administration.

History of Shame

Nobody harped about the clock and swimming pool incidents more than Konrad Mizzi and Joseph Muscat did before their successful election. Yet within days of getting elected, their accountants were doing the impossible to open accounts in secret jurisdictions. They gave our hospitals to a foreign company and months ago it transpired that Muscat was contractually promised almost half a million euros in consultancy fees from the hospitals’ buyer. Despite this, we witness no shame, no apologies. Prime Minister Abela deflects all criticism, Muscat threatens to topple the chief investigator and file countless libels against those that irk him. But nothing of substance happens. It’s life as usual within the corrupt circles as the taxpayers are paralysed by the government’s impunity.

The road to shamelessness in Malta started primarily under Gonzi’s government. Prime Minister Gonzi could reroute responsibility by having lesser government members suspended while under investigation. More often than not, after a thorough investigation, the member, often a minister, was absolved of any wrongdoing but the damage to one’s reputation often proved fatal for the accused’s future career in politics. Eventually a question popped up about Gonzi’s son and the clients he had in his practice. The eggshell at the top suddenly fissured.

In came Joseph Muscat as new prime minister and within days the highest echelon in Castile was mired in multi-million-euro corrupt practices. This was a new game in town and the opposition wasn’t prepared for it. A woman by the name of Daphne took it upon herself to fight the corrupt, but her articles hissed with such odiousness, shredding to pieces people’s personal lives in the process, that she alienated more people than she won over. She also single-handedly transformed the opposition into a useless gallery of spectators.

The Times, which for decades had sustained the Nationalist party machinery, went into its own corrupt deals, and abandoned the party. Sensing that the opposition was disintegrating, the Labour government rapidly built a political patronage network that had been dismantled by the previous government. The previous government had left many public jobs unfilled in the name of financial austerity. The new government doubled the national debt in ten years, saddling the state with useless jobs. In ten short years, a culture of impunity took hold in the race for juicy “ħniżrijiet.” Lack of transparency hid scandals for years, until it was too late, as the hospitals’ rip-off proved to all. Greed and self-interest overcame the leftist philosophy of the Mintoff and Fenech Adami years. The police proved weak and corrupt. Woke and gay ideologies increasingly control speech in the classroom and public forum. Nothing escapes retribution if it is considered a competitor of the new dogma.

“Christmas” was labeled offensive by the butterball of wokeness, Helena Dalli. “Mother” and “father” were banned from classroom discussions by the childless gay lobby masquerading as a concerned campaign for children from broken families. But then almost all children have a mother and father, even if in different households. It’s the rare child in a gay family that may have one side of the equation missing. Fake “equality experts” started mushrooming in Malta as inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient, went through the roof. These so-called equality experts are clueless on financial matters and economic opportunities. Their expertise is confined to sex of the Sodom and Gomorrah type. All they have to show for their university years are useless degrees. As the public became increasingly disillusioned about the emerging philosophy and education, and a corrupt political class, government members felt less accountable and more inclined to engage in corruption without fear of a backlash. The public’s repeated exposure to corruption and twisted principles in the land of Twistees desensitized the moral and social stigma. 

One of the biggest losers in all this was the Nationalist Party. Gone are the days when exposing corrupt practices led to rapid change in ministers’ portfolios and practice. Labour is now bulletproof against shaming campaigns. Against the government armour, verbal criticism is as ineffective as blanks from an air gun.

There is however a vacuum which holds great promise for principled Maltese to turn the increasingly sorry state of the nation around. The country needs a resolute team of lawyers that fight liberal laws and troubling cases tooth and nail. The courts haven’t yet been captured. They can stall the unbridled government monster that threatens to swallow us all. The Nationalist government has shown truly little inclination to play this strategic card. What Adrian Delia masterfully did in the hospitals’ case was a brilliant exception. The Nationalist Party fails to understand that without effective shaming, the opposition is reduced in parliament into a chatter box. The game should be moved to the law courts. What Repubblika does for liberal issues, a newly formed band of lawyers can do for issues that are central to family-oriented civilization in Malta. The hottest potato in Maltese politics this year was abortion. Another hot potato was the war against free speech when it comes to Christian preachers. Repubblika was stone deaf on these issues, showing everyone that nothing can fill the void of a new team of legal scholars that spearheads a family-oriented revolution through the legal and constitutional systems.

Repubblika