Joseph Muscat’s propogandists who are engaged in PR and media campaigns to fight for his reputation and attack his critics will say that Joseph Muscat is hated because he brought great success to the Labour Party. It’s the same old pathetic excuse by the grifters and fraudsters who have got nothing worthy to say and do that is valuable and productive to society: those who make a living by grifting, defending the corrupt, while engaging in fraud and conspiracy themselves.
Joseph Muscat wants to turn his corrupt proceeds, his hubris and wreckage he left behind as an object of desire and envy: somehow this humble politician who just had up to โฌ50,000 in savings when he became Prime Minister, could leave office six years later with a loaded bank account in Dubai that is enabling him to live a lavish life, all the while supposedly his assets are frozen.
Shortly before he left office, on the steps of Castille, Joseph Muscat refused to explain why he went to Dubai. Today he goes there freely with Charlon Gouder and Diane Izzo, and is not afraid to show his unusual and large expenses publicly. Apparently, those who defend him think that this is a vindictive attack, while others think that we should be more forgiving.
Joseph Muscat is suspected of having distributed and laundered his wealth through various individuals and associates – many of these suspected individuals are under investigation and facing Court proceedings for money-laundering and related offences.ย He is also suspected of being involved in various schemes which keep giving him new revenues, but some of these schemes have also been shot down by foreign authorities. On the other hand, the local authorities keep giving Joseph Muscat a free pass and full immunity for most of his alleged crimes.
Some within Labour, who acknowledge his corrupt history, say that we should be forgiving because after all he was a successful Prime Minister and he has a family. Others like the Prime Minister want a Devil’s Pact. Society should move on and allow Joseph Muscat immunity and his freedom to play politics and conduct business.ย Even the Nationalist Party under Alex Borg and Adrian Delia intend to embrace this mantra.
What does immunity for Joseph Muscat mean? Legally, it signifies that the rule of law is ineffective and undermined, allowing the government to override it at will. A parliamentary majority or a ruling government can choose whether to enforce certain laws, and to what extent, on a particular individual. This creates a dangerous precedent where populism and authoritarianism can flourish at the discretion of the Prime Minister.
Joseph Muscat is no petty criminal who stole tuna cans while being homeless. Just before the start of 2020, Joseph Muscat, under pressure to resign from street protests, his own Cabinet, and party, delivered his end-of-year message to the nation, in which he threatened to use the security forces and the army against us, the Maltese people, if we undermined the stability of the country.
It’s incredible how people quickly forget. Let’s condense the 2019 political crisis. If Daphne Caruana Galizia wasn’t murdered, Joseph Muscat may have very well remained in power and avoided a national crisis. Yet, it is his hubris, his grand-schemes of corruption, and his association and conspiracies with individuals like Keith Schembri and Yorgen Fenech that eventually caused the murder of a journalist and the most significant political crisis in our history.
This is very simple to understand. Joseph Muscat basically threatened the Maltese with the army in a crisis of his own making all the while he was laundering the nation’s loot after years of constant and wide-scale corruption. His end of year speech in 2019 was a grand exhibition of authoritarian delusion that pushed the nation into the precipice of a dictatorial Banana republicanism.
Giving immunity to Joseph Muscat means that we increase the risk of our democracy turning into an authoritarian and illiberal democracy, we damage the fundamentals of the rule-of-law and give leeway to populists apart from emboldening politicians and the government to do even further corruption.
It is no coincidence that Maltese politics is taking a more populist direction as Joseph Muscat enjoys his immunity from prosecution. Joseph Muscat turned the government and Labour into a criminal organisation which primarily protects him and his friends. When Joseph Muscat faces justice for his crimes with the full force of the law, (and with his assets actually frozen), the Labour Party would begin to change as the criminals who hold it hostage begin to disappear. Democracy would take a breathing as authoritarians and populists would be held back.
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