By an anonymous author known to me:

One gets the impression that the indifference of the opponents of this regime’s iron-fist rule and non-observance of the rule of law, is not only by the official Opposition but by and large, by the general public as well.

There was a time when what later turned out to be scandals, the public absolved the government as it was ‘new’ and still on a learning curve. It was showered with quotes like, “we could have done things better” and ”we will learn from our mistakes”. The public bought it, and appears to be still buying it, if surveys are to be taken seriously.

Not only the government did not learn from its mistakes, but it turned the ‘learning curve’ upside down and descended in depths of corruption never before fathomed. The public watched, cringed, and proceeded to do little, if any at all.

The apex of this regime’s sleaze was reached on October 16, 2017 when Daphne Caruana Galizia was systematically ‘eliminated’ for being an inconvenience to the regime for exposing its corrupt practices.

The people protested, people grieved, people remember…..  But grieving and remembering alone do not motivate a corrupt regime to change its ways. The public watches, the public cringes, and the public is slowly accepting the regime’s behaviour and now regards it as ‘normal’.

The official Opposition, by large uses Parliament as its forum to protest, to taunt, to repeat what we already know, perhaps because it realizes that no matter how hard it pushes, how hard it argues, the regime’s majority overwhelms whatever protest or argument it makes. The Opposition wrings its hands in the circumstances.

Egrant, Keith Kasco, Konrad Mizzi are still firmly the three columns of corruption withstanding the force of criticism, not just local but from the four corners of the world even if by now, the rope must be chafing their brass necks.

The public watches. The public is getting used to having no strong will by the Opposition to lead it either because of weak leadership or division within, or lack of resources, which hardly constitutes a valid excuse.

In all this, the regime stays strong, denies ‘allegations’ chases after ‘whistle-blowers’ and continues to roll over any opposition to its intentionally flawed laws, new and altered, all aimed at accommodating its stooges. The top elite continue to amass millions from ‘commissions, brokerage fees and recycling of Indian garbage’. The peasants are treated with 58c here and 1.75 euro, there, and all is good.

Experienced people in virtually all ministries and entities which previously enjoyed a large degree of autonomy, have been replaced with party amateurs and hand-picked stooges who are nothing more than ‘yes men’ and ‘yes gals’, and are not able to raise a finger without being instructed what to do and how to do it by the evil men in Castille.

A Minister giggles and feels proud that this band of crooks mislead even its own supporters [and voters] that it had hidden issues from them at election time because, ‘you know, the election manifesto is a package’, either take it as is and if you do and elect a government, you will find out hidden surprises when it way too late to do anything about them!

The public watches, the public cringes, but the public is unable to dislodge a regime which has been given a large mandate and a blank cheque by a large majority to whom patriotism means almost nothing, where money in one’s pocket is freely exchanged for lack of freedom of expression, where sleaze is preferable to the rule of law, morals and doing what is right rather than what is convenient an expedience. The regime must survive, even at a cost of a journalist’s life.

The public has been lulled, the public has been rendered impotent by a vicious few.

Gradually we are entering an era of helplessness – and helplessness leads to apathy, a very dangerous condition to be in, unless we wake up from a regime-induced coma we are in, and do something about it, in a coherent manner when Maltese get together in loud protest, because as the saying goes, ‘there is strength in numbers’.

But we are still searching for someone who is capable and willing to take charge. But who?