Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/826629
31 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 21 MAY 2017 Opinion www.homeaairs.gov.mt/nipproteġuk RECORD INVESTMENT IN DISCIPLINED FORCES More than €90 million State of-the-art equipment Professional training Improvement in working conditions For the quality service you deserve Police Keeping you safe Army Civil Protection Correctional Facility sheet: I'm guessing 'accessory to fraud and false accusations', or something of that nature. And again, just like Labour, a massive chunk of the Nationalist Party would have to follow their leader overboard as he walks the plank. Funny, isn't it, how the implications of a 'secondary issue' could be so utterly primal in their immediate consequences? But again: the same proviso mentioned earlier has to apply here, too... only in reverse. It all depends on whether the allegations are proven or disproven... which in turn depends on whether they CAN ever be proven or disproven at all. By the time you read this we may well have a final answer – I'm expecting the magisterial inquiry to be concluded by Sunday, though of course I won't be placing any bets. But consider for a moment the worst-case scenario. What would happen if that document never emerges at all, and it proves impossible to ever settle the matter one way or another? That, I fear, is the likeliest scenario... and the long-term effects would be dire. Half the country would believe – indefinitely – that their beloved party leader, and his even more beloved wife, were framed. The bitterness and resentment will just never go away. It will reverberate for generations to come, as other unsolved political crimes still reverberate to this day. The other half would believe, with equal conviction, that their prime minister somehow got away with murder. Or at least, money laundering... which carries a comparable sentence anyway. If Joseph Muscat wins this election under those circumstances, his government will be haunted every step of the way by suspicion and doubt. He will become a persona non grata in European power circles. In all honestly, I don't even see him surviving the first year of his new term. But hey! What are you all doing still reading this, anyway? Egrant is 'no longer an important issue', remember? It is now a 'secondary concern'. Clearly, I am wasting your time...