Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1514782
12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 JANUARY 2024 ANALYSIS Robert the Confessor: magnanimity IN the Catholic universe, some sins take you to purgatory, oth- ers to hell. In Robert Abela's universe, some misdemeanours are punishable by temporary ex- ile. But it remains unclear which sins merit a permanent interdic- tion. Abela is not reinventing the wheel. In 2004 Lawrence Gonzi had forced his foreign minister John Dalli to resign over rev- elations that his minister had carried out Lm40,000 worth of ministerial bookings through a travel agency that owned a share in another company with his two daughters as directors. But he was reappointed health minister after the 2008 general election, and then kicked up- stairs to the European Com- mission, from which he ended up resigning in disgrace amidst the snus scandal of 2012. But while it is understanda- ble that MPs guilty of minor misdemeanours, such as being involved in a traffic contraven- tion are given a second chance, things get more complicated in cases involving government funds. In the case of former educa- tion minister Justyne Caruana, one may well argue that she was already given a deserved second chance following her first resignation. In that case, Abela had himself raised the bar to a new level, with Caru- ana being fired not because of a fault of her own but because her estranged husband Silvio Valletta, a high-ranking police officer and FIAU official, had befriended murder suspect Yorgen Fenech. But after a few months in the wilderness, Caruana was re- appointed education minister, only to be kicked out again af- ter the Commissioner of Stand- ards found that she breached ethics when gifting a €15,000 contract to her new partner Daniel Bogdanovic. She never showed any re- morse and went on to challenge the constitutional validity of the Commissioner's decision in the law courts. Significantly, it was Abela who brought up Caruana's name in an inter- view on TVM's Xtra earlier this week, when he was asked about Labour MEP Josianne Cutajar's announcement that she will not be seeking re-election. In a clear indication of his intention to forgive her, Abela rhetori- cally asked: "Isn't she another person we lost in politics?" The return of Rosianne Abela's absolution of Caru- ana's sins came days after he indicated that former Labour MP (now independent) Ro- sianne Cutajar may be allowed back in the party's parliamen- tary group from which she had reluctantly resigned over em- barrassing chats with alleged Caruana Galizia assassination mastermind Yorgen Fenech. In those chats she justified an up- coming plum job with ITS by pointing out that "everybody else was pigging out anyway". Although initially Abela had defended Cutajar over the pub- lication of chats exposing her private life, the Labour MP was asked to resign after the chats became the talk of town. Cutajar had already been kicked out from Abela's Cabi- net in 2021, over her role in a property deal with Fenech, that was also confirmed in a report by the Standards Commission- er. Now Abela insists that both Cutajar and Caruana have paid the price for their sins and may be absolved again. But how will this impact on the other casual- ties of Abela's decision to raise the bar after taking over from his disgraced predecessor? Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Chris Cardona - the unforgivable Despite being implicated in the Panama Papers in which his financial advisers had named Fenech's 17 Black as the source of funds to be deposited in a se- cret offshore company, former energy minister Konrad Mizzi has never been found guilty by a court of law. Moreover, he was kicked out of the parliamentary group fol- lowing reports suggesting that Fenech's 17 Black had profited from a wind farm project Ene- malta bought in Montenegro in late 2015, when Mizzi was en- ergy minister. But by kicking Mizzi out a few months after being elected leader, Abela distanced himself from the Panama cabal and in- directly from his predecessor. When accused of lowering the bar by dispensing forgiveness for lesser crimes, Abela can al- ways say: "Look there are still sins which I will never forgive." The other casualty was Chris Cardona, who resigned from Labour deputy leader after be- ing named in court by self-con- fessed murder middleman, Melvin Theuma, in connection with the Daphne Caruana Gal- izia murder plot. The former minister denied all involve- ment in the murder. And neither has Abela shown Robert Abela says that in politics some sins can be forgiven… others not. Styling himself as some political confessor, it seems Abela will decide on who is worthy of his forgiveness. JAMES DEBONO takes a look at the few casualties of Abela's raised bar and asks: where do they stand now? Abela's calculation may well be that in MEP elections, where turnout is low, it is mobilising core voters – including constituents of errant MPs – that wins the election