There is one thing that is absolutely clear to Labour loyalists and activists, regardless of their hardened and blind loyalty to their leaders: they don’t like leaders who lose and they don’t like losing elections. As one might expect, they are highly dismissive of leaders who lead them to electoral defeat. This sentiment has been reinforced by the long period the party spent in opposition, as Alfred Sant’s leadership repeatedly guided Labour into constant defeats.
The latest polls spell doom and gloom for the Labour Party and it’s not just because Labout looks like it is set to lose the elections: it is also set to lose the elections while it is mired in scandal and sleaze with no hope in sight of turning the tide by projecting itself any way different. This situation also risks Labour to condemn it to many years in Opposition as it loses its trust with the general public. Once Labour is in Opposition, it won’t be able to criticise and mount attacks on the government over corruption issues: Labour has no credibility on good governance.
Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Robert Abela, who has ruled as a Supreme Leader with pretenses that he could manipulate the justice system to shield Labour from its scandals has no good option available to him. Doing the right thing is always better than being late, but the Prime Minister has no such intentions: earlier this year, he re-confirmed Angelo Gafa as his Police Commissioner, clearly indicating that on corruption and politics, the Police wouldn’t be doing very much.
For the Labourites who are not very much concerned about whether Joseph Muscat faces justice or not, they are not very welcoming of Ministers sleazing out their time away in office, and Robert Abela keeps insulting their intelligence by protecting them and keeping them in power. Mostly these are decisions taken out of desperation and they compound the already growing dissident against the Labour leader.
Robert Abela has many activists around him telling him right now that he is not the best option for Labour in the next elections. They are telling him that things have gone seriously wrong and the government won’t survive unless it takes a radical change of direction. Supreme Leader won’t listen and he would prefer to believe that his political malaise is owing due to policy failure: deep down he knows this is not true.
Inside the Labour Party’s Parliamentary Group, a new rebellion is emerging that wants the Labour Party to contest the next general elections with a new Labour Leader. It’s not going to be Joseph Muscat and those in the mainstream press who have been giving him and his criminal associates coverage and space have been making a serious and gross error of judgement. As it was clear in the last internal Labour Party elections, Joseph Muscat doesn’t have the delegates to mount a return in the Party and many people inside Labour are actually fed up of him, more than they are of their Prime Minister. Labourites will hate Robert Abela for destroying their electoral chances, but they will hate Joseph Muscat even more for being a traitor and undermining the current leader. Ultimately, there is no one greater than the Party and they know how to express these political positions.
The latest scandal is shaking Labour’s foundations, and after repeated scandals that have consumed its soul it was only inevitable that things would come to this. I’ve been typing furiously about Labour’s collapse for some time now, but those who were in power preferred to believe that their power insulated them from the consequences of their actions. The bills are now coming due, and the price to pay for the political wreckage appears to be, unsurprisingly, hefty.
Robert Abela has too many problems to talk himself out of this and only radical change can save him, if at all. That would entail an admission that many things were done wrong and need to be rectified, starting from the position of the Police Commissioner and the Attorney-General. His other option is sit out an internal Labour Party rebellion and hope for the best, but of course, this strategy will fail. His situation is made more complex by the fact that the Ministers who are the subject of the current scandal, namely Clint Camilleri and Clayton Bartolo are his allies in cabinet and he can not risk losing his allies while other MPs want him replaced. This is truly a mess of unprecedented proportions.
Hate to say I told you so, but those in Labour who were skeptical of my claims and judgments are now reading this website with increased attention and detail. You’re late, but better late than sorry.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply