Rosianne Cutajar is back – not with a bang but with a whimper. There was no announcement, no welcome party, no victory parade.
Only a quiet media announcement that Rosianne had rejoined Labour. “She has to be willing to apologise for what happened,” Robert Abela declared in March. “I believe that when a person expresses genuine regret and gives a genuine apology, they should be given a second chance.”
“Without an apology, no real interest in reintegration is being shown – so I believe an apology should be given,” he insisted.
There was no apology. There was no expression of regret. But barely five months after his tough talk, Robert Abela had to swallow his words and let her in.
Everything has been forgiven despite Cutajar’s lack of admission, apology, acknowledgement, or act of contrition. No wonder Labour kept it quiet.
All is forgiven. The thousands of euro in gifts from Yorgen Fenech, her staunch and devious defence of Fenech’s 17-Black at the Council of Europe and her subsequent sanctioning are forgotten.
Her failure to declare her income from the sale of an Mdina property to the same Yorgen Fenech was absolved. Her phantom job and the tens of thousands of euro she stole from the taxpayer have been excused.
Abela has been made to grovel to Cutajar and let her back in – on her own terms. Yet he told Jason Micallef, “When your time is up, don’t come back”.
He made Jason Micallef special delegate for the implementation of the electoral manifesto in return for withdrawing his nomination for deputy leader of the Labour Party.
Claudette Agius Baldacchino withdrew her name too but got no such reward. Maybe it’s still on the way.
So, if Abela was willing to reintegrate Cutajar without an apology, why did he keep her waiting for so long? If that apology wasn’t required after all and he believed that “enough time has passed” why did he keep her out?
Abela lacks certain qualities that make a prime minister respectable. He has no credibility, wisdom, subtlety, sensitivity, self-awareness, humility, honour, grace, or shame.
Abela is a dark, chaotic comedy. He never once says anything funny, witty or faintly amusing. His idea of a joke is some crass comment or an illiterate insult.
He accused a magistrate of “political terrorism”. He called Roberta Metsola “a warmonger” who wants to send our children to war. He called Bernard Grech “a puppet of the establishment”. He told Jean Paul Sofia’s grieving mother she let others use her.
He accused the bereaved family of Daphne Caruana Galizia of being “more interested in their repugnance for the country than finding those who are criminally responsible for the assassination of the journalist”.
His mind is an algorithm of petty prejudices, harboured grudges and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any underlayer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth – it’s all surface, no inner world, no soul.
He had no qualms walking past Jean Paul Sofia’s mother after voting with his party against a public inquiry into her son’s death. He had no second thoughts about vilifying Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family.
He openly denigrated Magistrate Marse-ann Farrugia for taking time to conclude the Sofia inquiry and openly lied about her.
He viciously attacked Magistrate Gabriella Vella claiming she had political motivations for timing the conclusion of her report on the hospitals scandal. He knew neither magistrate could defend themselves. He hit below the belt like a true bully.
But facing Joseph Muscat, he turns into a wimp. He’s too scared to withdraw Muscat’s diplomatic passport or to terminate his use of government offices in Sa Maison. He’s too timid to take away Michelle’s car.
The fact that a significant minority of Maltese, perhaps a third, look at what Abela does, listen to what he says and think, yes, this seems like my kind of guy, is a matter of distress to the rest. You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
His faults seem pretty hard to miss. It’s almost impossible to hear him speak without staring deep into the abyss. He makes Joseph Muscat look trustworthy and Alfred Sant coherent.
His closest people are deserting him. Randolph de Battista is gone. Chris Fearne stepped down. So did Daniel Micallef. Abela’s Chief of Staff, Glenn Micallef, called it a day.
Labour’s head of communications, Ronald Vassallo, has given up. Aleander Balzan, his policy advisor, disappeared. Nigel Vella is seething, having been cheated by Abela of the Labour CEO post.
They know the game is over.
But the money stays!
everything in silence obviously… no one must know, now they will start giving her some government office and everything goes back to how it was before. an exit from the scene to silently return when people forget
‘All is forgiven’
This ‘reinstatement’ of Ms Cutajar, like some other PL high ranking politicians with a similar record of ‘conduct’ reminds me of how things work for the Catholic Church.
Committing a sin, go to the priest and make your confession, no matter what, the priest is somehow obliged to give one the absolution and the sinner has to say all the prayers the priest obliged him / her to do in exchange for the absolution.
So it goes round and round, it doesn’t matter how many times one sins, it’s always going to be forgiven. This make people think that self-responsibility isn’t a thing to be taken seriously, because by always being forgiven, it doesn’t really matter.
In our times, when the Catholic Church loses more and more people because of the scandals it has been involved by the sins committed by some members of the clergy, absolution is also a thing that sometimes backfires because it contravenes the feelings of justice by those who obey by the rules. So, the Catholic Church, like the PL itself, have to ‘abide’ with those who are still on their side.
In May this year, the UK electorate in its majority got rid of the corrupt and incompetent Tory govt and voted for Labour by a landslide. In Malta, the electorate is still locked in for another couple of years until it gets the chance to get rid of PM Abela and his party in government. Until then, due to this ‘perceived’ never ending PL circus, there will be lots of absolutions handed down by Abela, just like any priest in his parish is doing. I wonder whether Abela might ever realise the ‘equality’ in comparison because as he said himself, some time ago, he doesn’t do comparisons at all.
Well, in some ways, the Catholic Church and the PL have much in common in some ways and this for a party that was led and shaped for decades by a man who called himself ‘a revolutionary socialist’, and was despised by the Church like no other before and after him.
It has become a bit difficult in the ranking of all those former MLP / PL leaders who was the worst of them all. From Mintoff to Muscat and now to Abela, each one of them has shaped the fate of Malta in their own ways. Abela is making efforts to top his predecessors in remaining the ‘continuation’ of Muscat because he has no ideas of his own. He’s no leader like the other two, but the caretaker of Muscat’s legacy. That I omitted Alred Sant in this list is merely due to his short time as PM, but at least, he rid the MLP of the Mintoff thugs. Must have been easier in compare to the state in which the PL still finds itself since Muscat took over.
Abela makes sure that things stay as they were since Muscat. The PL is making progress in rotting from within and the longer it takes, the worse it gets and continues on its way to its own downfall. That will be the legacy of Robert Abela, as PM for finally ruining Malta beyond recognition and being the ‘undertaker’ of his own party. ‘Waves are only in the sea’, but never forget the tide when it is turning because at some time it will turn. It is just a matter of time.
Some corrective addition to my previous comment. The previous UK govt announced in May 2024 the date for the general election which took place on 4 July 2024. At that time, the tide turned already against the Tory Party.