This podcast by Francesco Serra is part of the Italian series "Ascuta" put together by a branch of anti-mafia umbrella organisation Use this link to listen on Spotify.

There is no doubt the odds are stacked in favour of Robert Abela. In spite of a Venice Commission intervention demanding reform, he will be choosing the next police chief and will keep them for a year on probation with the power to kick them out without needing to give anyone an explanation. It feels [...]

The prime minister said yesterday Repubblika “paralysed the army” by playing politics. It rather takes away all the comfort we get from the idea that we have an army that can defend us from terrorists, traffickers and organised criminals. If a bunch of ragtag Nazzjonalisti ndannati ta’ Simon Busuttil can disarm our military by hiring [...]

Arend Lijphart in a variety of contributions discusses the notion of a "consociational” or “consensus” democracy relating to or denoting a political system formed by the cooperation of different social groups on the basis of shared power. In his seminal 1999 treatise “Patterns of Democracy” he establishes a distinction between what he calls alternately “majoritarian” [...]

Continues from part 1 of this series. The 12-month report of the competent person was tabled in Parliament on 20 April, and it covers the period from 20 October 2018, the date of appointment of the competent person, to 31 October 2019. The competent person, however, included certain important data up to 28 February 2020, [...]