Like you, I just want a credible and worthy government to sail Malta and Gozo out of these stormy waters. I want truth and justice.
But oh, what a thorn I continue to be in the side of those who close blind eyes to wrongdoing.
I have been asked many times not to divide the Opposition against Muscat.
I do fully support the Nationalist Party’s call for Muscat to resign. I believe in everyone getting together to apply pressure on the Panama Gang to be removed from power. I appreciate the things credible Nationalists have done and continue to do.
But I will not let that momentum and pressure put on government be hijacked by Hermann Schiavone and Kristy Debono and their defenders and retainers. Do you think I don’t see what they’re doing? Was Moviment Graffitti at the protest this weekend to promote them as an alternative? No, and with good reason. This united movement is not built upon the idea of a monolithic Nationalist Party that must be allowed to do whatever it wants with impunity.
Corrupt businessmen abandoned the Nationalist Party because the pastures were greener with Labour. If the Nationalists are not as close to big business now, it is only because they have nothing to offer. Let us not forget they gave away Tigne Point and Manoel Island, just for a start. The 2006 rationalisation continues to yield profits to some.
Labour swept to power promising meritocracy, good governance and environmental justice. It is easy to talk when one is in Opposition. But that is why every signal counts when one is asking for power. Every action must be measured against its amplification once in government.
These signals mean everything. And the failure to sack Hermann Schiavone and Kristy Debono, who went to Yorgen Fenech with a begging bowl, is a massive red flag, as red as the flag Muscat waved when forming his movement.
I was a proud candidate for the 2017 Forza Nazzjonali coalition. I knew what I was fighting against then, and what I was fighting for. If I support this call for unity now, just for the sake of settling for a lesser evil, it would not only make me a hypocrite – it would abolish any and all value I bring to the public sphere.
My contribution is that I am critical. My value is my encouragement to opt for higher standards. I am of service to all of Malta rather than a select few precisely because of the standards I set, even when they come at my own expense, by opposing popular currents and going against the grain.
And so I will lay out the first of my conditions to give the Nationalist Party the hope of a second chance, because in asking for basic standards, I am no partisan fanatic. Sack Hermann Schiavone and Kristy Debono. They are the ones dividing the Opposition, not me. Am I really to blame for pointing out the obvious, that the Emperor has no clothes? What of commitments to good governance registered in various reports, which call for, among other things, the dismantlement of party owned media? Will the Nationalist Party put an end to that, ending ONE News and giving up NET in the process? Will db Group’s patronage finally be spurned?
Until these basic standards are credibly met, I will stand with Repubblika and Occupy Justice, but I will continue to be the one who watches the watchmen and speak my concerns aloud. Because if I don’t, there aren’t enough people in Malta and Gozo who will. Malta has enough Yes Men as it is. I refuse to be just one more.