Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1524591
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 28 JULY 2024 ANALYSIS MATTHEW VELLA mvella@mediatoday.com.mt MANY are those lining up to be Labour's pallbearers. Former ministers like Evarist Bartolo certainly are dusting their suit: in the last weeks his daily mis- sives ticked the boxes on summer's energy blackouts, the alleged prev- alence of cocaine as recreational drug of choice, and Malta's flirta- tion with NATO's parliamentary assembly. And those on the left of Labour point at the inevitable electoral cy- cle for a party burnt out by lax gov- ernance standards and now cor- ruption charges against top brass and its disgraced former leader, Joseph Muscat. It is not without irony that Rob- ert Abela – like Lawrence Gonzi a prime minister elected by an internal party election – seems to be looking at a similar fate as the last Nationalist prime minister: asserting his leadership on a party riveted by unspoken feuds, lacking the gel provided by a leader's vi- sion, and contending with national problems of 'overheating' – more economic growth, more foreign labour, more energy consumption, all putting pressure on national in- frastructure. And in this second summer of intermittent blackouts for Labour, more party critics are sharpening their claws. Neville Gafà, a one-time hench- man in Joseph Muscat's secretari- at, thinks Labour is in urgent need for renewal, suffering from 'too much government' and 'less party' since its election in 2013. But you won't find Gafà, who now inhabits that Maltese ecosys- tem of mischief-makers on social media, blame Muscat (least of all the chief of staff who served him). He too is lining up as a pallbearer for Labour. Except that it is hard to think that a pro-Russia voice, "anti-woke", Eurosceptic, pro- Trump/Erdogan/Putin strongman admirer, should be the one to ad- vocate for Labour's renewal. On the placard newspaper that Facebook is in Malta, voices like Gafà's are clipping and cut through the cacophony of attention-seek- ers. Politics has multiple registers, from the PM's speeches down to the hum and haw of the peasant- ry. But with people like Gafà, who shills for his masters, a new fre- quency is added to Labour's dirge, one that can sometimes rise above the hum of the mobile power gen- erators propping up Malta's ailing power substations. 'Socialist' on the far right What is certainly particular about Gafà is how his brand of identitarian populism is so much at odds with the party that Labour portrayed itself as under Muscat. Which is not to say that big-tent parties do not house right-wingers. But up until his master's resigna- tion in 2019 after the arrest of Yor- gen Fenech over the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Gafà's Facebook cover photo sported the words 'I Am A Socialist'. All along he had been tasked by the Muscat administration as a diplomatic freelancer to Libya to help broker an agreement to relay coordinates of migrant boats from the Armed Forces of Malta to the Libyan coastguard. Dozens of boats were stopped from entering the Maltese search and rescue area, arguably an illegal act of non-refoulement. Controversially, Gafà nurtured contacts with sanctioned mili- tia leaders like Libyan warlord Haithem Tajouri, and once faced accusations that he had extorted cash from Libyans to issue them with visas for medical care. On the latter, Gafà has not faced any charges, despite losing a defama- tion case against the stories that revealed his role in the visa racket, and the magistrate urging police to investigate claims that he had attempted to bribe witnesses. Chris Fearne, as then health minister, sacked Gafà from the Foundation for Medical Servic- es where he had been officially placed. When in 2020 the depu- ty prime minister ran for leader, Gafà called on Labour delegates to pick a "continuity candidate" who could deliver on Muscat's legacy – arguably not Fearne. Then in 2020, after his repudiation by Robert Abela, the renegade started flying his true colours. Paid by Russia? 'I wish...' On X he regularly saluted far- right firebrand Matteo Salvini, posted videos of Giorgia Melo- ni, leader of the Italian far-right Fratelli d'Italia, toasted Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdo- gan – because he supported the Libyan Government of National Accord – and started posting on all his social media an unending stream of Russian propaganda posts: lauding Vladimir Putin, his Hungarian pet Viktor Orban, re- posting Russian foreign ministry updates on the war in Ukraine but also celebrating 'Great Patriotic War' nostalgia (rather than salute Malta's role in WWII); and derid- ing Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his supporters in the EU's leadership and inside NATO. He comfortably posts messages like 'Your enemy is not Russia' or hashtags #IStand- WithRussia. It is hard to think that Gafà is not being paid for this endless stream of propaganda. "I wish I was being paid," he says, brushing off the suggestion in a telephone interview with Mal- taToday which asked him if his social media commentary was financed by Russian misinforma- tion agents. "I am doing this because I think Malta will end up facing serious consequences, and unofficially I send these warnings to the govern- ment – that a small country needs all states and cannot just break all ties with Russia." As he tells MaltaToday, Gafà stands against the EU's support of Ukraine, and calls the Union a puppet of the United States, along with the mainstream media which he claims does not speak the truth about the Russian war. "What happened was a revolution in the Donbass in 2014, that provoked the attacks from Ukraine on those people, and for which Russia nev- er retaliated. Until 2020. Yet no coverage is given on the massacres that happened there, and that is why the EU shuts down RT and Sputnik. Do you call that demo- cratic?"' Cheering Russia's 'family values' When the European elections got underway, Gafà posted cele- bratory photos on the advance of the far-right, gleeful at the grass- roots rebellion against the EU's leaders over migration. In his metamorphosis into a fer- vent pro-Russian, anti-EU critic ("The EU is not my country", he posts), Gafà also supplied Face- book with 'anti-woke' posts on abortion and LGBTQI people ("the widespread propaganda of the LGBT movement with its 'rainbow flag' has nothing to do with the actual rainbow… There is a war for human souls underway"). Some quotes are sourced from the countless YouTube profiteers, such as Andrew Tate lookalike Bobby Risto, a Macedonian You- Tuber who converted to Islam – like Gafà. Again, Gafà reveals himself to having been a conservative inside Labour's otherwise trailblazing record of LGBTQI reforms. "I be- lieve in values. My children today are adults but thank God I do not have young kids today, who would suffer the EU's gender indoctri- nation," he says, using the word adopted by all those kicking back against gender mainstreaming. "I disagree with same-sex adoption, for example." Yet it was Joseph Muscat who legislated same-sex adoption, a feat Gafà does not criticise. But again, as we tiptoe back to Rus- Muscat loyalist Neville Gafà has a Neville Gafà with Keith Schembri (above) and attending Robert Abela's swearing-in in 2020