Yesterday, I spontaneously interviewed the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Alex Agius Saliba, who is also one of the nine Vice-Presidents of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) Group in the European Parliament.
The interview was spontaneous because originally I wanted to ask him about the scandal surrounding the Labour Party’s elections for its Executive Committee, but I took the opportunity of the call to ask him several other questions.
I’m currently in the good books of Alex Agius Saliba, and this enabled me to have a very calm and reasonable conversation with him. Currently, he is being unfairly criticised by the Opposition for refusing to vote in favour of a motion by the ECR in the European Parliament against the Muslim Brotherhood. The sham motion, supposedly intended to fight against Muslim conspiratorial interference in European politics, was ironically a word-by-word statement as crafted by Abu Dhabi as part of the UAE’s fake defamatory campaign against its rivals worldwide under the designation of “Muslim Brotherhood”.
Apparently, the United Arab Emirates has a very strong influence on the far right at the European Parliament, and Alex Agius Saliba is immune to this pervasive interference. On the other hand, he is not immune to propaganda from Moscow or Beijing, and this is where he finds himself the object of strong criticism at The Maltese Herald.
Alex Agius Saliba has pandered to Russian talking points with populist calls against European defence expenditure because, according to him, this decreases our focus on social expenditure, which should be a priority in Europe. He totally ignores the fact that Europe is currently under persistent and serious security threats from Russia while our democracies are being undermined by its propaganda and subversion.
This is a conversation I already had with him, however, and this time round I wanted to speak to him about other matters. Alex Agius Saliba has a major responsibility in the Labour Party, and this responsibility also carries weight on a national level. The Labour Party has currently divided society as it is turning the state and the nation into an illiberal democracy where organised crime in politics has the upper hand. The top Labour Party officials have a serious national responsibility to address the national malaise because they are the powerful political elites running the most powerful political machine in Malta and that effectively rules both the government and the state.
Apart from backing Joseph Muscat, Alex Agius Saliba has also been one of the fiercest critics of the Opposition. I confronted him with these matters, and the conversation would have been valuable if it had been recorded. I missed the chance, but I ended the conversation by telling Alex that these kinds of conversations should be available on the public broadcaster—only that it is impossible for these conversations to be aired on the public broadcaster, given its state as a Labour propaganda outlet.
The interview started with the election of the Executive Committee of the Labour Party. As the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, this issue should fall right in his alley, but he said that he has absolutely no say or authority over the election of the executive committee, given that this is under the full responsibility of the party’s Electoral Commission. However, he seems to know about the details. He explained that there was a genuine mistake in the counting process, given that the counting process is divided between separate tables: those that count and those that announce the count. Eventually, there is a reconciliation, and the number of votes was small and easy and quick to count.
It is true that the Labour Party has very strict and efficient internal voting mechanisms, which are also checked and verified independently by its officials and organs, as I can attest to from when I was a delegate with the party myself. However, party delegates have protested that the Prime Minister interfered with the electoral process to favour his candidates. He denied this.
“As the Deputy Leader, I can assure you the Prime Minister did not, and even if he wanted to, could not interfere with or influence the election process because it is beyond his remit, with the Electoral Commission having full authority over the process.”
But I pressed Alex on this issue even further. Party delegates are still protesting that the Prime Minister is favouring and rewarding his loyalists at the expense of party activists.
“The party has many different people with different views, but we are all fighting for the same aims under one leader.” Alex denies that there are major factionalism issues within Labour. At face value, this seems to be true, but this is only because that opposition against Joseph Muscat’s criminal faction within the party is currently very low. Factions do exist only that right now – they are all subdued to Joseph Muscat.
On the issue of the General Conference, the fact remains that the Prime Minister’s loyal soldier, Wayne Sammut, eventually got elected to the Executive Committee, and following his election, Wayne Sammut was appointed Chairman of Festivals Malta: a bizarre appointment that screams nepotism and iced bun. So I asked Alex Agius what he thought about this in a way he could easily understand.
“Don’t you think that the incentives for the youth to be active with Labour today are very different from the incentives we had in our days? We were in Opposition fighting for a better Malta, but the youth today are only incentivised to join Labour to extend their careers. Do you think this is the case?” I asked.
That’s where he got very defensive.
“I don’t think so. What I think is a problem in politics is the hatred that good people can get from outside…”
That’s where I interrupted him and interjected with, “So you are blaming the media?”
“I’m blaming everyone,” he said, “and all of us have to take responsibility.”
Alex was complaining about a recent story in the press about an investigation by the European Parliament into a contract for services he awarded to other Labour Party activists. Alex Agius Saliba insists that he followed procurement proceedings.
“I’m the kind of person who has never earned anything else other than the salary for my political work, and the last thing anyone can accuse me of is financial impropriety or something of that sort.”
I think he is right here. Having known him well for some time (I’ve known Alex literally for more than 20 years by now), I don’t think he is the kind of person who would go out of his socialist ways to enrich himself or his friends via corruption. On the other hand, his blind and zealous loyalty, and also his strong political ambitions, did lead him to defend Joseph Muscat and all the corruption he conducted.
He lost his defensive composure after I gave him some credit to this, and that’s when I turned to one of the most important questions I had wanted to ask him for a while.
“Do you think that the Labour Party has spread a lot of hatred through its propaganda arm ONE, especially against Daphne Caruana Galizia and her family? Do you think that the Labour Party has played a major role in sowing hatred in our society?”
Incredibly, he didn’t deny it.
“Look, I think we all have some degree of responsibility, and this means all political parties.”
This was a startling admission that was never made by the Deputy Leader, who has acquired a reputation for being extremely fierce against the Opposition and the press.
“But Alex, the Labour Party is in government, and it is in power: shouldn’t it be, therefore, the first entity to make a step towards national reconciliation in these conditions?”
“I think everyone should make this step, Labour included.”
“The Labour Party is in power,” I retorted.
“The Labour Party should make that step, and everyone should seek to calm down the negative atmosphere by showing goodwill,” he replied.
Was that genuine? Or just calculated political talk to tell me things that I and my audience want to hear?
I bet the hateful propaganda on ONE will continue, and I am not holding my breath that the Labour Party will change.
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