As Chris Fearne departs from the Cabinet, a very practical and material consequence arises from his departure: he was one of the last dissenting voices in Cabinet apart from being some of its last brains. The last remaining dissenting voice is Finance Minister’s Clyde Caruana whose sound will surely become lower as a consequence of Fearne’s departure. Both of them had and still have a very close relationship and work closely together even politically.
Fearne and Caruana can also be considered as two of the last technocrats, adding with them Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg who unlike them is not a dissenting voice, but by far surpassing them in political seniority in terms of government experience. Ian Borg’s popularity in the Party enabled him to break Party’s orthodoxy and move the Maltese State closer to the West and NATO without invoking any controversy.
Despite hating him as his internal rival, Robert Abela genuinely feels the need o f Chris Fearne’s presence in Cabinet and it’s for the very basic and practical reason that brains are lacking in the Cabinet and the Parliamentary group. It took a while for Robert Abela to understand this, but multiple crises eventually convinced him that you need to know a thing or two to run the country and it’s not enough just being a criminal village lawyer.
It sounds funny, but the problem is by far more serious than it sounds. The country is being run by none other a bunch of amateur crooks who genuinely believe that the Prime Minister is the “check and balance” of the judiciary and criminal convictions can be overturned by a plebiscite.
The material consequence of lacking brains in government can be exemplified by last year’s electricity-grid crisis when dozens of people died due to extreme heat conditions during national blackouts. The problem at the Ministry of Energy will supposedly be solved by kicking Energy Miriam Dalli upstairs to Brussels, only that Robert Abela has no one to replace her with, except maybe for Ian Borg and Clyde Caruana who would most probably not accept such a poisoned chalice.
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