Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1264355
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 28 JUNE 2020 OPINION Raphael Vassallo It was never about 'ethical standards', though, was it? IT is obviously too early to tell, but there seem to be flickers of a backlash against the Labour Par- ty's unceremonious dumping of Konrad Mizzi last Tuesday. This week, The Times quoted a 'party veteran' who said "they had sensed a wave of criticism from party supporters following Mizzi's dismissal"... including "Labour voters who were even threatening not to vote because the party had 'danced to the tune' of protestors who they perceive as being 'anti-Labour'." For what's it worth, my own social media newsfeed has thrown up similar comments here and there. It seems that an undercurrent of Labour sup- porters can't understand how a party that has defended Konrad Mizzi tooth and nail for four whole years, would suddenly turn around and just throw him under the bus like that. Interestingly enough, the root cause of this 'wave of criticism' – i.e., 'dancing to the anti-Labour tune' – is almost a direct echo of the reasons given by Konrad Mizzi himself, when defying his party leader's marching orders on Facebook. Mizzi's exact words were: "I did not agree [with Robert Abe- la] that I should resign over alle- gations and speculations pushed forward by the PL's adversaries." And evidently, a percentage of the Labour Party's support-base (however large or small) share that overall sentiment. Well… who can really blame them? These are, after all, the same Labour supporters who had cheered so ecstatically last January, when newly-elected PL leader Robert Abela – having won that election on the prom- ise of 'continuity' from the Mus- cat era – celebrated his victory by publicly embracing Konrad Mizzi on the podium, to raptur- ous applause. How can they not feel confused – possibly even betrayed – when the same Robert Abela suddenly emerges from a PL parliamenta- ry group meeting, to announce that Mizzi had just been (almost unanimously) ousted from the party… because, please note: "we have set the highest stand- ards of governance, and of good ethical behaviour on a political level…"? Meanwhile, it says some- thing about the sheer magni- tude of this turnaround, that even the news bulletin on the Labour-owned One TV that evening – though otherwise selectively edited, as always – chose to retain, and even high- light that particular remark: as though to underscore the fact that Robert Abela was 'doing the right thing' by sacking Mizzi… even if it meant doing the oppo- site of was the 'right thing' until just the day before. Unfortunately for Mizzi's fan- base within the Labour Party grassroots, there is only way to interpret that message: i.e., as an admission that the so-called 'an- ti-Labour' brigade had indeed been correct all this time; that Konrad Mizzi's behaviour really was (at minimum) 'unethical'… but also, that it is only now – i.e., in the wake of last week's Montenegro revelations, which exposed a money-trail that takes us beyond the realm of 'allega- tions and speculations' – that his position within the Labour Party has finally become polit- ically indefensible (and, there- fore, instantly expendable). And they're being told this, not just by Robert Abela himself, and 99.9% of his parliamentary group… but also by the Labour Party's television station: which has actually been saying the clean opposite for years. In 2017, for instance, Mizzi was hosted for a staged inter- view on One TV… and present- ed to the audience as the 'victim' of a Nationalist-led frame-up (or a 'Terinata', if you prefer the archaic term). The Labour me- dia has also consistently down- played the link between Konrad Mizzi and 17 Black: even more so when Yorgen Fenech was re- vealed as the owner of that com- pany in 2018. And the same line was maintained even in late De- cember 2019, when Fenech was eventually arrested for murder, and the entire Muscat adminis- tration imploded. Throughout that time, there was a common thread to the Labour media's defence strate- gy: all the so-called 'allegations and speculations' against Kon- rad Mizzi were always deflected as part of a complex conspira- cy by 'people determined to get back into power at all costs' (or words to that effect, anyway). It was, in a nutshell, projected as a possible 'threat' to Labour's otherwise unassailable strangle- hold on power… thus triggering the automatic reflex-response of 'rallying the party troops around their beleaguered cham- pion'. And the strategy worked, too… To make good on Tuesday's 'ethical standards' boast, then, Robert Abela will have to dismantle part of the political apparatus that has stood the Labour Party in such good stead in recent years