Dictatorships are not necessarily born by coups or dramatic violent events. Dictatorships or authoritarian regimes can also evolve from fragile liberal democracies and we’ve seen this process already such as in Turkey, Thailand, and Venezuela. In Europe, we have a milder version of this process which we call the “illiberal democracy” mostly popularised by Hungary.
On a most fundamental and universal basis, all of these regimes and processes share many common characteristics, making them appear no less distinct from fascist politics. The regimes of these states have a total disregard for the rule of law, have absolute contempt for democracy and the free press, jail their opponents and attack the free press, disregard human rights, capture the state, are intertwined with organised criminal groups, and become criminal groups themselves, they capture the courts and the judiciary, and ultimately, murder anyone who gets in their way. The election of Donald Trump as President of the US in 2016 was the perfect indicator that fascism was making a comeback in the world. Upon his election, alarms were rung that “the end of history” had ended, and that history is back.
Here in Malta, we have a very peculiar situation because our democracy is relatively new making our democracy more vulnerable to risks. As the nation builds its state and allocates its resources, conflicts may arise in the process that threaten democracy with one particular group taking advantage of its strength and dominance in society. The experience of a prolonged dictatorial regime was avoided in 1987 after Labour was voted out of office, but the risks of authoritarianism, rampant criminality, murder, and dictatorship are now back and they are being flaunted openly by the Prime Minister as if these are good things. This is the unwritten electoral manifesto for the Labour Party that is being spoken and acted upon consistently, that is turning the Maltese state into a monolithic Labour Party State that supports and abets the Labour Party criminal network – most of it based on planning applications, large public contracts and real estate.
Yesterday, Robert Abela sent a message to the Maltese courts basically, demanding them to rule in his interest and favour (he did it publicly, although he already has been doing this privately). He said this by implying that if the courts ruled in favour of the cases brought forward by the Opposition, the Opposition would be ruling the country through the courts. This is the same and universal trope by all dictators and autocrats and it has or is currently being used by autocrats like Tayyip Erdogan, Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Kais Saed, and now, none other but our own Prime Minister himself, Robert Abela. This sly, semi-literate, village lawyer, who laundered the funds of Malta’s biggest drug dealers is making no secret of his intentions to tear down the liberal state and excrete his poisonous waste all over the place.
His announcement comes right after another announcement that he is welcoming Rosianne Cutajar back into the Party’s fold. Now, he is also welcoming back Justyne Caruana. And the direction is very clear. Joseph Muscat’s criminal network and supporters are being rehabilitated and an alliance, which will soon turn into a merger, is taking place of Robert Abela and Joseph Muscat’s factions, with both of them holding considerable sway over the Labour Party. Out with Chris Fearne, in with the Mafia, officially. The Labour Party is now being completely taken over by criminals and no wonder, the Labour Party has a lack of candidates for the upcoming local council elections and the principled activists are jumping ship. Everything is falling apart and this serves Robert Abela and Joseph Muscat who can manage their survival through this chaos.
In 2019, the criminal structure that Joseph Muscat had built in the local political and government system was threatened by massive street protests and a rebellion in the Labour Party. Collectively, the nation came together to avert a disaster and a criminal dictatorship. Now, those gains are slowly being reversed. Robert Abela is in counter-attack mode and the Labour Party will go on the offensive.
They have already captured most of the state: they have the Police, the Attorney-General, the public broadcaster, and most of the government departments and entities, and now they want to take the courts because it’s the last state apparatus that can prevent them from running the country with outright and sheer criminality and total impunity.
Everything sounds hyperbolic, until it’s not.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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