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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 FEBRUARY 2024 OPINION 5 Saviour Balzan Maserati Muscat and President Metsola Saviour Balzan is founder and co-owner of Media Today, publisher of MaltaToday, he is a TV host and pollster TWO personalities immersed in the business of politics but with very differ- ent backgrounds and histories attracted my attention this week. Joseph Muscat arrived for his interview at F-living, chauffeur driven in his Ma- serati accompanied by his aide. He was smiling, and he has good reason to smile. The party he once led is paralysed and at a loss on how to tackle him. Muscat has thrown a red herring with his tease about whether he will stand as an MEP candidate for the next Europe- an election. His two interviewers did as much as ask him if he was really interest- ed. He answered that enquiry like a play- ful cat tossing a dead mouse in the air. The more pertinent question is wheth- er he was motivated to do this because of the impending magisterial inquiry that could lead the Malta police to kick off criminal proceedings against him. That is one way of looking at it. The other way to look at it is that Mus- cat's name crops up every time we talk about the way the State looked the other way or even participated to facilitate a murder. Not to mention his involvement in Vitals and so many other questionable deals and so on and so forth. The other question is he really believes the Labour Party's leadership want him back and whether his return would ben- efit the party and Robert Abela. To be fair, I would expect Karl Borg Bo- naci to have asked these questions, but when it comes to Manuel Cuschieri I real- ly must admit that I do not expect much. The man is what David Thake was to the Nationalist Party, an apologist who deliv- ers his diatribes in staccato style reminis- cent of an Orwellian character. For fear of sounding too repetitive, Muscat should do what he is best at – making loads of money for big business, keeping out of the political sphere and beam at the sight of his stylish car cre- ated for the exclusive and the establish- ment. As Muscat was repeating unclear state- ments about his candidature, Rober- ta Metsola was repeating non-answers about her interest for a second mandate as president of the European Parliament. Asked by an AFP reporter, she gave one of those laughable statements in French that she is not interested in talking about herself. False humility I guess describes someone who answers in this way. What is clear is that from what we are hearing Metsola is not looking at return- ing to Malta and actively considering to stay on in her capacity as president. The AFP reporter of course did not ask her about her interest in standing for leader of the Nationalist Party. I am cu- rious what her answer would have been. None of us can look into future, but if we had to place odds, the chances for Metsola to enter local politics appear slim. Which means that after June, the PN is probably going to have to run to the next general election with Grech at the helm. And unless he changes his style of leadership and political discourse, I do not see the PN making great inroads. Furthermore, his mixed messages when it comes to taking important political decisions are not helping. Grech will argue that his style is what it is. But it is not only the style that is of consideration here, but rather the ab- sence of oomph and the vitality to make us all excited with his ideas. Maserati Muscat managed in 2013 to fascinate all those who were literally dis- mayed by the Gonzi years. Grech on this level fails hands down. So, as things stand, we will be still see- ing much more of Maserati Muscat and President Metsola, but my feeling is that they will be orbiting around Mother Earth like small moons with little grav- itational pull on the direction in the country. * * * It was rather surreal to see that this week, a big discussion arose in court about a se- cretive Europol report which detailed the potential persons of interests linked to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. It turned out that the persons of interest list was simply speculative and the con- tents were irrelevant to the case. An aca- demic study with little appreciation of the story behind the story. Everyone; the police, the magistrate, the prosecutors, the lawyers including Jason Azzopardi and those representing the interested parties and defendant tried to give the impression that they did not know what was in this report. Perhaps everyone should be given full credit for first class acting. I said it last time and I will say it this time, this report was leaked by the same individual who was in the court last week, to various members of the media in 2018. Ironically the lawyer who leaked the re- port should have known better in the best interests of the family he represented. The copy has been reproduced and cop- ied several times over by different mem- bers of news corps. Only those with a modicum of decency have opted to keep that copy under lock and key. Joseph Muscat (Photo: Times of Malta/Chris Sant Fournier) and Robert Metsola