The pseudo-reshuffle announced by Robert Abela reminded me of US Embassy cables leaked by Wikileaks. In some of these cables, the then US Ambassador Molly Bordonaro, quoted Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi as complaining about the “limited talent” present in his Parliamentary group when choosing his Cabinet in 2008.
While this problem has affected many Governments since, Robert Abela is giving a new twist to this concept. Robert Abela is weaponising “limited talent” as a strategy to extend his control over the Labour Party and the government, by basically appointing useful fools, compromised individuals and dilettantes to all important posts so that he alone may have control. All critical voices are purged and the most idiotic are brought to lead government entities. The hallmark of this policy was visibly evident with the appointment of Jonathan Attard as Minister of Justice – a previous Super ONE hack.
While the media got confused about the supposed “reshuffle”, what Robert Abela actually did was eliminate a heavyweight (Chris Fearne) that could lead an internal challenge against him along with a smaller dissenting voice (Aaron Farrugia), with the pretext of “regenerating his Government”. Robert Abela replaced these two figures with MPs who have little name recognition and no stand-out track record: Jo-Etienne Abela and Chris Bonett.
Other responsibilities were distributed to loyalists. Planning went to Clint Camilleri, creating massive ill will amongst environmentalists and Naomi Cachia was made Whip; while Glenn Beddingfield made an utterly comical comeback as Parliamentary Secretary for public cleanliness.
The “limited talent” strategy is in fact, being used by Robert Abela to eliminate higher-status politicians and replace them with minor ones who will be more submissive as they do not have the political clout to challenge his diktats. This strategy is bound to backfire as Labour continues to reduce the performance of the Government by filling it with bumbling idiots and as Robert Abela’s shrinking inner circle struggles to control more tightly every aspect of Labour’s administration.
Indeed many people think that this has torpedoed the prospects for any Labour recovery prior to the upcoming MEP elections, which Robert Abela sees as a do-or-die event for his Premiership. Many Labourites expected a thorough reshuffle signifying a strong message to Ministers to deliver. Now, the only incentive Ministers have is to obey him.
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