Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1220238
6 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 11 MARCH 2020 NEWS ANALYSIS JOSEPH Muscat benefitted from a perfect alignment of the stars: he enjoyed an era of lower oil prices, a spike in global tour- ism, and a relaxation of building rules that gave him a construc- tion boom and a comeback from the 2009 global slowdown. With his foot on the accel- erator, Muscat triggered a pe- riod of growth which left the country breathless, and which left him immune to corruption allegations which in other cir- cumstances could have spelt trouble for him. His successor Robert Abe- la certainly enough defied the odds by winning the leader- ship battle and upstaging the seasoned Chris Fearne, sub- sequently showing acumen in uniting the party behind him while reaching out to critics. Polls showed him extending his lead over the Opposition, extending his appeal to a seg- ment of PN-leaning voters who detested Muscat but who give Abela the benefit of the doubt. With the PN spiraling into in- ternal chaos, the prospect of an even stronger Labour hegemo- ny loomed large on the politi- cal horizon. But Abela now finds himself facing both the corruption leg- acy of his predecessor, com- plicated by his own promise of continuity, and two less pre- dictable factors: the national outrage against the construc- tion industry following the death of a woman in the sev- enth house collapse to date, and the coronavirus outbreak rocking not just the Maltese economy, but the world. And all three together may have a domino effect. If the coronavirus does trig- ger an international recession, fearing a slowdown in con- struction Abela may be not as keen on regulating construc- tion, even if he may be under more pressure to do that after the latest tragedy. And while for the past years people have been immunized by economic growth, anger against corruption may well grow in a context of economic decline. In short: reality may be catch- ing up with Abela, whose stars are not as lucky as those with which 'teflon Muscat' was How the coronavirus interrupted As PM, Robert Abela's short honeymoon has been interrupted by the reverberations of the Vitals hospitals scandal, the Hamrun house collapse that killed a woman, and Covid-19 shock: looks like the stars are no longer aligned in his favour, JAMES DEBONO writes