After shaking the team, a mentality change

The Prime Minister has unfettered prerogative on the formation of Cabinet. He alone decides who to appoint or demote; what portfolios are to be assigned or shifted about. 

Indeed, it is possibly one of the loneliest and hardest decision-making processes every prime minister has to endure. Decisions on the formation of Cabinet have as much emotional repercussions on the individuals concerned as much as political and electoral ramifications. 

Finding the right balance between being ruthless and humane; being politically strategic and keeping the national interest in mind, is not an easy task and one fraught with pitfalls. 

The surprise reshuffle Robert Abela carried out last Saturday has all the trappings of a prime minister who wants to hit the ground running ahead of June’s European Parliament and local elections. It appears the Prime Minister did not want to wait for the outcome of the mid-term electoral appointments to rejig his executive – a less than optimal result would have been the perfect excuse to move things around. 

Instead, Abela wanted to pre-empt events to try and determine the outcome of the elections by responding to disgruntlement at a national and party level. Whether this strategy will be successful is another matter altogether but it does show Abela is not one to take things for granted and is willing to shake his team. 

A reshuffle was going to be necessary at some stage this year with Chris Fearne’s eventual nomination as European Commissioner. But apart from preparing ahead for a smooth transition when Fearne darts off to Brussels, Abela used the occasion to plug some holes and cause some surprises. 

The removal of Aaron Farrugia from Cabinet may have been a very harsh call. The former minister had his fair share of gaffes, like when he blamed feasts for traffic congestion and kept mum when the CEO of Transport Malta urged people to leave home for work at a later time in the morning to avoid rush hour. 

But these could hardly be the reasons why he was shown the door. If anything, Farrugia had responded to growing complaints on Y-plate drivers by introducing new tougher regulations and took the popular decision to ban rental e-scooters, even if it was a reversal of policy. 

Whatever the reasons the Prime Minister had for leaving Farrugia out of Cabinet, one can hardly expect his successor to perform miracles on Malta’s roads, more so at a time when the hefty road development budget (€100 million annually) is gradually shifting to Project Green’s urban greening works – which are essentially ambitious road tunnels in urban environments to create gardens and open spaces at street level. 

Another casualty of Abela’s reshuffle was Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi who was stripped of his previous portfolio and given the responsibility of the Lands Authority and the nebulous ‘implementation of the electoral manifesto’. 

Abela’s decision was one step shy of kicking Zrinzo Azzopardi out of Cabinet even though he was the only minister in the past four years to bring home the legal reforms that introduced the licensing of contractors. The reform of the construction sector has now been entrusted to Jonathan Attard in a year when the findings of the Jean Paul Sofia inquiry will be known. 

This leader hopes that the inquiry’s conclusions are not given short shrift by the executive like happened with the findings of the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry. 

There may be other reasons of which we are not privy to why the Prime Minister came down hard on Farrugia and Zrinzo Azzopardi. Abela has no obligation to publicly explain his decision but this leader believes that he should have shown similar zeal in removing Anton Refalo, who is hounded by the controversy of the historical stone marker that somehow found its way into his private garden. A clear replacement for Refalo could have been parliamentary secretary Alicia Bugeja Said. 

But Abela did make other changes that sent pointed messages. Glenn Bedingfield’s appointment as parliamentary secretary tries to respond to unease among the Labour Party’s grassroots in the Second District that lost its traditional focal points – Joe Mizzi and Chris Agius. The former was not elected in 2022 and the latter was not appointed to Cabinet. And while having a parliamentary secretary dedicated to public cleansing may seem over the top, it shows government is willing to give importance to public cleanliness as a response to the multitude of complaints on the shabby state of public spaces. 

This leader only hopes that the upkeep of public places is an ongoing process that is accompanied by tough fines for those who persist in littering. 

And the Prime Minister, in typical Labour fashion, did not shy away from appointing new faces to the executive. Malcolm Paul Agius Galea and Omar Farrugia were only elected to parliament in 2022 and apart from the electoral considerations of having two young, popular upstarts on the 7th and 5th districts respectively being given the chance to prove themselves, it pays to have new blood being honed for more responsibilities in the future. 

Even Chris Bonett’s promotion to minister from parliamentary secretary comes less than two years since he was elected to parliament for the first time, a sign of trust in the former Malta Football Association’s vice president. 

These changes may placate pockets of discontent but government must not lose its focus on the key issue that has been hurting people – inflation and the erosion of people’s spending power. Within this context, Abela must also impress upon his ministers the need to spend public funds diligently. Unbridled public spending jars even more when ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet. To address this issue a mentality change is required and not just a reshuffle.