Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1297549
15 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 OCTOBER 2020 Having navigated their way through previous corruption scandals without significant losses, the governing clique literally could not get away with murder – despite their expectations. Malta: Overlords' fiefdom of an EU member? The most perplexing aspect brought out by the court hearings was Fenech's firm confidence in being above the law. Even taking into account the unresolved political murders of the past and mul- tiple institutional failures, one had to be absolutely delirious to assume they could avoid prosecution for a crime of such magnitude. By October 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia was an internationally renowned journalist. She had featured on Polit- ico's list of "people who are shaping, shaking and stirring Europe." The news of the murder immediately became an international sensation, publicised on the front pages of leading internation- al media. She was also a member of an influential family and a mother of a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist. How was it possible to expect "getting rid of her easily" – in such a mafia-style assas- ination! – right under the gaze of the international community? Sure, Yorgen Fenech had everyone in his pocket. He had friends in positions of power. He thought that impunity was the rule of the game. Indeed, he and his gang seemed to believe that Malta was their little fiefdom which they ruled as supreme overlords. However, they mis- calculated: at some point, the rotten system cracked at the seams and the le- gal institutions responded as they must. Had the gang's assumptions about the extent of their power been correct, the public would have never learnt what came out in the past year. The harrow- ing revelations themselves are proof that delaying investigations further was beyond the overlords' control. Inter- national scrutiny – substantially aided by the determined campaigning of the Caruana Galizia family – and the Euro- pean Union all must have played a deci- sive role in making this happen. The breakthrough in the investigation has dented impunity and altered the Maltese political landscape in unfore- seen ways. Charges against a mighty ty- coon have undermined the idea that the elite stand above the law. Finally, it cat- alysed a process of holding the powerful to account. If only a year ago, having a company in Panama was brushed off as too insignificant a reason for resigna- tion, by now this has certainly changed. It is debatable what played the key role in inducing these tectonic shifts: the democratic pressure of the Decem- ber protests or the financial pressure deployed by the European community. However, one thing is certain: Malta does not exist in a vacuum. Internation- al players can exert effective means of lobbying, lest overlords assume their power be unlimited. The exposed institutional failures eroded the legitimacy of Malta as a ju- risdiction within the EU and globally. One of the gravest consequences of the high profile corruption scandals is the risk of becoming the first EU member to be greylisted by the Financial Ac- tion Task Force (FATF). The Council of Europe entrusted Moneyval to assess Malta's compliance with international standards to counter money laundering. In light of this, the arrests of Nexia BT partners and Keith Schembri are a re- sponse to international financial scruti- ny, not pressure from below. They seem to be late attempts at patching up Mal- ta's international reputation. Corruption, tarnished reputation and de- mocracy Considering what we learnt in the past eleven months, the reputational damage and its economic implications, however grave, must not be our major concern when it comes to corruption scandals. Our prime goal must be building a mass movement capable of challenging abus- es of power. The dispute over reputation is a dou- ble-edged sword. Locally, the general public's reaction to corruption-related matters is com- parable to their dissatisfaction over a high number of COVID-19 swabs: the fewer the tests, some seem to believe, the lower the spread. By the same rea- soning, if corruption remains unseen, it is as though it does not exist. The blem- ished reputation is therefore squarely the fault of the whistleblower, not the perpetrator. The Nationalist Party survived its terms in power without comparable scandals, it could be argued, due to a lack of initiative to investigate their ties with big business. Plainly put, there was 'less corruption' because no one – in- cluding Daphne Caruana Galizia – was willing to attract international attention to it. In contrast, former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat repeatedly implied that Malta was being "tarnished from Bidni- ja". "People among us are attacking the country", he claimed in May 2017, re- ferring to the journalist. Ironically, the criminals who were running the country until recently con- tinue to pose as patriots having Malta's interests at heart. They bank on nation- alistic and patriotic sentiments, hoping to remain invincible and immune to prosecution. It is no coincidence that two days prior to Fenech's testimony in which he accused Schembri of being the true murder mastermind, Neville Gafà – the former person of trust at the Office of the Prime Minister – attempt- ed to distract the public by attacking search and rescue NGOs. The true patriots – the gang's narra- tive goes – meant no harm. They only wished to eliminate a traitor who tar- nished the country's reputation, "#Vi- vaMalta!" It is utterly bewildering that many still remain loyal to the disgraced gang. Isn't it clear that the criminals who expect- ed to get away with murdering such a prominent person as Daphne Caruana Galizia could easily get rid of anyone at all? People might be misled into thinking they have nothing to worry about: un- like the journalist, they do not intend to cause "trouble" to moguls. Some might assume that bowing to crooks in power guarantees their safety. But this idea is deceptive. The powerful must be held to account because unchallenged authority and abuses of power threaten each one of us, and we cannot rely on internation- al attention to always come to our aid. The Caruana Galizia murder trial and Yorgen Fenech's own testimonies prove that one need not threaten the rulers' influence in order to be eliminated. The powerful 'can get rid of' anyone simply because they can – if we allow them to get away with it. Raisa Galea is editor of The Isles Of The Left (islesoftheleft.org)