Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/989894
OPINION 21 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 JUNE 2018 TEN years ago I interviewed Joseph Muscat on TVM; he had a goatee and I sported a bushy beard and was 17 kg lighter. You can watch it on YouTube. In this interview before the election for the next leader of the Labour Party he talked of a new Labour and mentioned in his second sentence a partit ambjentali – an ecological party. Ten years down the line, Muscat has recreated himself, modelling his success story on the Eddie formula and the grand finale has been a veritable success. But the partit ambjentali he talked about is only a pale shadow of that mental note he communicated in haste on the 10 minute programme. Today we publish yet another survey which shows that if an election was held now Muscat would win with 82,000 votes. This would translate into an abysmal disaster for the Opposi- tion and a great victory for the PL but it is not good news for the country. I do not deny that I am not surprised, I am also not un- happy for the PN – if you ask anyone out there, the PN stands for nothing new. Muscat has transformed the PL into a populist movement encompass- ing all the ideas of the right with a big splash of liberal politics to keep it from moving too far to the right. He is unashamedly against increased taxation and insensitive to environmental is- sues but a champion for gender issues. Muscat is also a neo-lib- eral, embracing big business and proving that the road to leftist policies is not only defunct but suicidal for electoral success. The Nationalist party has little to offer other than a new face who spends more time fighting the rebellion from within than the adversary on the throne. Better still, the same old faces have little or no credibility when it comes to confronting the Government on transparency and good governance. With regard to Joseph Muscat, the biggest and most worrying aspect is his reluctance to re- form the planning laws to pacify and stop the wanton destruc- tion of our skylines, villages and more importantly the complete transformation of our country. This is no joke. Defending the track record of Muscat is not difficult but today the surveys are finally bringing together the top three concerns namely traf- fic, environment and construc- tion… which all have a green tinge. Corruption is still in the background. Muscat can choose to ignore all this. He has a majority that could quell a rebellion from within but if there is some- thing that could move him it is his concern about his legacy. Generations to come will not remember the numbers and the statistics. Instead they will look at the concrete masses around them, that obliterate the views, the footprints and the public land that was once accessible to one and all. I, like many others, was brought up with a sense of open spaces; the countryside, the opportunity of playing in the streets without fear of traffic, of walking from one small town to another and taking note of the green buffer zone between the communities. I remember looking out from the roof and seeing Mdina and Valletta, and the typical outline of Maltese villages. Malta has changed and the overriding excuse for this phenomenal wave of rampant destruction is the blind financial greed led by construction mag- nates and budding developers. Yet while few question the free market economy, we cannot renege that we have a social ob- ligation towards future genera- tions. And if that does not ring a bell for Muscat, I don't know what will. >•< Now I will not mince my words, but the decision by Magistrate Aaron Bugeja and Anthony Vella to meet the three MEPs is not only unac- ceptable but a very serious mistake. I would like to know what the Chief Justice thinks of this. Was he informed? If he was, did he agree to this? Can you imagine Bugeja and Vella accepting to appear in front of a Public accounts com- mittee in parliament? Can you imagine both mag- istrates meeting the press in an informal meeting with an ongoing investigation? The answer to the last two questions is that they would not have agreed. And I am certain of that. Most members of the judi- ciary do not even talk to the press. And let us face it, if I had to interview Aaron Bugeja I would definitely ask him the important question that every- one is asking: "You are in the 13th month of your investiga- tion, when is the inquiry going to be finalised and published?" And then I would ask Magis- trate Vella, if he had not taken possession of the Caruana Galizia laptop because he did not want to irk the family. Well, both Bugeja and Vella will not talk to the local press or the local parliament because somehow it appears that they consider the European Parlia- ment to be more respectful and important than the local one. However, they have to be reminded that it is the Maltese parliament and the Maltese parliamentarians that wield legislative power rather than the overpaid and underworked MEPs. Sven Giegold and Ana Gomes, of course, are so lost in their narrative that anything you tell them literally refracts over their head. Giegold especially, reminds me of a Star Trek character who thinks that Malta is a silly State and that its people are subhuman – very much in line with what Caruana Galizia thought of most of the Nation. Ana Gomes too, has this obsession, even questioning whether Vella should be pro- moted to Judge. Indeed, perhaps Gomes would like to consider giving up her comfort zone in Brussels together with her handsome salary and sit on the Maltese Commission for the adminis- tration of Justice. But what is insulting is that two members of the judiciary discuss their ongoing inquiry and the procedures, however limited in scope, when the whole nation, the press, the political parties and the govern- ment are waiting in earnest for a closure to all this. If Bugeja and Vella were as- sociated in any way with the Labour Party I have no doubt that today they would have been dragged before the Com- mission for the administration of Justice. The third member in the MEP delegation is, of course, David Casa. Casa should be closely observed when Giegold was asked about Adrian Delia by the Maltese press: his feet start to shake under the low ta- ble, his shoulders move up and down and he looks down to avoid any eye contact with the journalists as he fidgets with his things. Casa knows that the party ma- chinery will not be backing him in the next European elections even if they will surely deny this. But many an insider Nationalist top gun from Pieta has told me that Casa is not their favourite and that they would rather go for a more faithful and more genuine person. What a pity it would be for Malta to lose a stalwart parlia- mentarian who, I am sure, will miss Brussels sorely with its grey weather, the rain, the low clouds, the endless administra- tion blocks and, lest I forget, that great feeling when the lights of the Parliament in Paul Henri Spaak Building, in Wiertzstraat 60, are turned off and one heads for the night life! Saviour Balzan What is insulting is that two members of the judiciary discuss their ongoing inquiry and the procedures, however limited in scope, when the whole nation, the press, the political parties and the government are waiting in earnest for a closure to all this @saviourbalzan Just absurd MEPs Ana Gomes, Sven Giegold and David Casa said it was evident there was a massive failure of the rule of law in Malta. Photo: James Bianchi/ MediaToday