Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/310131
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 11 MAY 2014 16 L ooks like it is now customary for the forces of law and order to chip into electoral campaigns every now and again. And Cyrus Engerer's criminal conviction this week seems in fact to carry on a long and illustrious tradition of court sentences (and, in other cases, arrest warrants) sprung upon candidates within weeks or days of polling day. True, it could be a coincidence that the timing of such incidents is always somehow congenial to the purposes of one political party or another. But the sheer consistency with which such cases now occur points towards a regular, almost predictable pattern of behaviour… a pattern whereby Malta's entire law enforcement machinery seems to only ever spring into action when there are a political implications to any given case. Right: before moving onto the broader implications, let us get the obvious out of the way. Engerer has been convicted of a serious crime (I won't go into the specific details for the sake of brevity, but they were all over the press this week). From this perspective he had no choice but to resign, as he did last Thursday. Had he refused to bow out of the race, it would have been the equivalent of fielding a wounded gazelle among lions and cheetahs on the Serengeti. His position was so obviously untenable that his opponents would have almost literally ripped him – and the party which accepted him as a candidate – to pieces. They would have been quite right, too. In fact the remarkable thing in all this is not so much that Engerer resigned, but that he even contested the election in the first place. He was after all facing criminal charges in court – in other countries that fact alone would have warranted resignation, regardless of the guilty verdict – and he knew that if he lost, the consequences would have been disastrous for himself and for the PL. He could therefore have spared his party all its embarrassment this week, by quietly bowing out long before the proverbial excrement finally hit the fan. As things stand, the most that can be said for Engerer is that he at least understood that his position was untenable, and threw in the towel where others might have tried to cling on regardless. Exactly how this makes him a 'soldier of steel' (not stainless steel, I would imagine) in the eyes of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is at best a mystery. I wasn't yet born in the days when the phrase first entered the public subconscious – nor, for that matter, was Joseph – but even I know that Mintoff 's celebrated 'suldati tal-azzar' was a reference to those heretics who defied a Church injunction against voting Labour in the 1962 election. The original expression was therefore used to denote courage and integrity in the face of injustice… not to mention fierce (ironically, almost religious) loyalty to the Mintoffian cause. It sits rather uneasily in its new 21st century context, where it is used to describe a man ultimately found guilty of rather shabby and disreputable behaviour... and placing his own party in an awkward, embarrassing and above all avoidable position in the process. Evidently, the quality of steel has been downgraded since 1962. 'Soldier of rusty corrugated iron' may not have quite the same oomph to it… but it would certainly have been more appropriate in this case. But what makes the whole affair especially interesting is the timeline of events. Cyrus Engerer claims the entire case against him was an act of political vindictiveness prompted by his own defection from PN to Labour in 2011. If true, this hypothesis would hardly justif y the crime for which he was convicted this week, nor lessen the political implications of the sentence. Nor would it justif y the Labour leader's extraordinary (and entirely inappropriate) defence of his beleaguered candidate, who has now been elevated to the unlikely rank of hero and political martyr. But (always if true) it would tell us a heck of a lot about how the forces of law and order actually operate in this country… in particular, how they sometimes seem to think of themselves as an extension of the national political machine. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Engerer's theory is, in fact, true. Cyrus Engerer was originally reported to the police in January 2010. The police concluded its investigation in March 2011: yet Engerer was arrested only on July 25 2011… a full four months after the police already had in hand all the evidence they needed to prosecute, and only 10 days after announcing his resignation from the Nationalist Party and joining Labour. Meanwhile a second 'political arrest' concerned his father Chris, also in July 2011. Apart from the obvious family ties, what connects these two arrests is the timing in relation to Cyrus Engerer's decision – on July 15 2011, remember? – to defect to Labour. Exactly 10 days later, Cyrus's father was under arrest for smoking pot in a Sliema bar, and Cyrus himself was served with a warrant over a complaint filed a year and a half earlier. Coincidence, I hear you ask? Well, indications at the time seemed to suggest otherwise. This is from a news report dated October 13 2011: "An inquiry headed by Judge Albert Manche' has questioned how the police took months to investigate Cyrus Engerer over alleged computer misuse and distribution of pornography but then filed charges just 10 days after Engerer, the Deputy Mayor of Sliema, switched from the PN to the PL…" The same inquiry observed how the Cyber Crimes Unit had concluded its investigation in Opinion Raphael Vassallo OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME II – COHESION POLICY 2007-2013 CALL FOR PROJECT PROPOSALS EMPOWERING PEOPLE FOR MORE JOBS AND A BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE The Managing Authority for Cohesion Policy 2007-2013 in Malta, the Planning and Priorities Co-ordination Division (PPCD) within the Parliamentary Secretariat for the EU Presidency 2017 and EU Funds, Ministry for EU Affairs and the Implementation of the Electoral Manifesto would like to announce that it has launched a new call for project proposals to be part-financed by the European Union under the European Social Fund (ESF) 2007- 2013. Eligible applicants are invited to submit applications for projects falling under Priority Axis 4: Strengthening of institutional and administrative capacity for the following Focus Areas: SUPPORTING PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM LIFELONG LEARNING FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR STRENGTHENING THE QUALITY OF EMPLOYMENT SERVICES PROMOTING A MORE EFFECTIVE SOCIAL AND CIVIL DIALOGUE IN MALTA Indicative Financial Threshold: €2 million (with the possibility of increasing depending on unallocated amounts) THE CALL CLOSES ON FRIDAY 20 th JUNE 2014 AT NOON Prospective applicants should note that the Operational Programme, Application Form and Guidance Notes, as well as further information can be downloaded from http://eufunds.gov.mt/opencalls. Applications will be received at PPCD, Triq il-Kukkanja, Santa Venera, SVR 1411 INFORMATION SESSIONS For further guidance, a half-day Information Session for prospective applicants will be held on Monday, 19 th May 2014 from 14.00hrs onwards. Online registrations for the Information Sessions will be received on http://eufunds.gov.mt/opencalls until noon (12:00 hrs) of Friday, 16 th May 2014. Attendance is by registration only on a first come, first served basis due to seating limitations. The number of participants from each organisation may be restricted if necessary. For generic queries relating to this call or to Cohesion Policy 2007-2013, kindly contact PPCD on the Email Helpdesk: info.ppcd@gov.mt Operational Programme II – Cohesion Policy 2007-2013 Empowering People for More Jobs and a Better Quality of Life Call part-financed by the European Union European Social Fund (ESF) Co-financing rate: 85% EU Funds; 15% National Funds Investing in your future Time to investigate links between police and politics What makes the whole affair especially interesting is the timeline of events