Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/823773
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 14 MAY 2017 9 Analysis did they react? The Panama shocker Of all the difficulties he faced it was Pan- amagate which found Muscat completely unprepared. Not only did Muscat fail to assess the grav- ity of the situation of having a chief of staff (Keith Schembri) and one of his most pow- erful ministers (Energy and Health Minister Konrad Mizzi) and prospective deputy lead- er exposed for having a secret company in Panama; but when faced by details exposed in the Panama leaks that both had unsuc- cessfully tried to open bank accounts to de- posit monies from the secret companies, he failed to sack them. While Schembri was retained as chief of staff, Mizzi was retained as a minister with- out portfolio in the Office of the Prime Min- ister. Subsequently Mizzi was even chosen to chair the EU's energy council during the presidency. The reshuffle prompted by the ICIJ leaks led to the return of Manuel Mallia to the cabinet. Clearly Muscat could not af- ford to punish Mallia further while retaining a minister who had caused even more em- barrassment to his government. The case exposed an institutional paraly- sis, with the police failing to commence in- vestigation despite an FIAU report which flagged possible abuses. An election to rebut a scandal Ultimately Muscat's greatest gamble is his final decision to call an election a year ahead of schedule in the wake of further allega- tions linking his wife to the Panama com- pany Egrant, and his chief of staff to alleged kickbacks in a payment from an offshore company owned by Nexia BT's managing partner Brian Tonna. Instead of waiting for the results of two separate inquiries, Muscat chose to seek popular legitimacy from the polls, in what could be seen as an attempt by Muscat to take back control of the timing of events which were now being dictated by the Opposition and the media. SIMON BUSUTTIL The civil unions fiasco The first serious leadership test for Busut- til was the vote which introduced civil un- ions and gay adoptions. Instead of showing decisive leadership to heal the rift with liber- als who deserted the party after the divorce referendum, Busuttil along with the rest of his parliamentary group decided to abstain, thus gaining the opprobrium of the LGBT community on what they hailed as a historic day. But despite the harm done Busuttil real- ised his mistake and henceforth silenced his party's conservative wing, supporting the in- troduction of gay marriage and reluctantly accepting the scientific verdict on the intro- duction of the morning-after pill. Losses in MEP elections Under his leadership, the PN received a drubbing in the MEP elections in 2014 which saw the party lose by 32,000 votes. The only silver lining for Busuttil was that of achieving his declared aim of electing three MEPs. But the election was a blessing in disguise for Busuttil, as it gave him a free hand to assert his leadership in the party and abandon the 'team PN' concept which had clearly failed in the new presidential context brought about by Muscat's election. Sacking them gently Simon Busuttil was firm in expelling for- mer PN Ministers Ninu Zammit and Mi- chael Falzon when their names surfaced in the Swissleaks scandal. Busuttil was also quick to expel Nationalist MPs Giovanna Debono after the police started investigat- ing her husband's role in the works-for- votes scandal and in persuading Joe Cassar to resign from parliament after MaltaToday revealed he had received gifts from Joe Gaf- farena when he was a minister. Busuttil also convinced PN deputy Toni Bezzina to withdraw a controversial ODZ application in Rabat. These cases showed that Busuttil means business when faced with abuse. But Busuttil also stood firm in his defence of deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami when it emerged that a police investigation on a com- pany in which he was director was not fol- lowed on during the 2013 electoral cam- paign. The professional business of his other deputy leader, Mario de Marco, also created prob- lems for Busuttil. De Mar- co had to renounce his legal services to the db group which was the target of the opposition for getting the ITS site for a sheer €15 million. The db Group blow One of Busuttil's worst moments was the way he was outplayed by the db Group, which revealed its donations to the PN's commercial companies in retaliation to Bu- suttil's instinctive reaction to an SMS asking the party to return past donations. Busuttil's public reaction to the SMS, in which he attacked the company for threat- ening him with withholding donations, came across as an ill thought-out act of bra- vado which ended up exposing his party's financial dependence on big developers, taking away the spotlight from the govern- ment's decision to sell land cheaply to db Group. The Panama gamble Busuttil has constantly upped the stakes on Panamagate, banking on popular sup- port for his moral crusade against what he depicted as a corrupt clique. Busuttil has managed to portray himself as an honest politician facing a government which in- cludes owners of secret companies. But by immediately jumping on the cart of allegations that Muscat's wife was the owner of Egrant and only later coming up with his own evidence against Keith Schembri, Bu- suttil risked giving Muscat an escape route if the most sensational allegation on the PM's wife is not proved. But Busuttil has managed to give his party a battle cry and to create a popular move- ment around it which transcends his party's boundaries. Busuttil's readiness to include PD candidates in the PN's list also shows a willingness to promote a more European brand of politics.