Muscat at his most defiant: ‘Corrupt? I left Malta’s till overflowing with cash’

Former prime minister Joseph Muscat enthralled hundreds of Labour supporters at a rally by MEP Alex Agius Saliba in what was his first such address since resigning in disgrace in 2019 following the arrest of Yorgen Fenech, the man accused of masterminding the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Muscat’s appearance was by far the highlight of the MEP’s mega-event on Pjazza Tritoni in Valletta, where the former leader used his soapbox for a fired-up, tour de force of Labour’s 11 years in power.

And he exhorted lukewarm Labourites into voting for the June elections, without ever addressing whether he was really going to make his own bid for MEP. Instead, under pressure from a magisterial inquiry that could carry criminal liability over his role in the controversial privatisation of state hospitals to Vitals and Steward, Muscat addressed his potential accusers.

“Those who accused me falsely in the past were proven wrong, yet no action was taken against their lies,” he told the rally, which included his family sitting on the front rows. “Instead, millions are being spent in finding something to accuse me with: the accusation is that I pursued a private career after politics. Those who use their political clout to push business to their children’s firms are never investigated. But I tell them: I have nothing to hide, you can search me all you like.”

READ ALSO: Joseph Muscat: ‘I don’t fear arrest… this is a frame-up’

Joseph Muscat was present for the rally together with his family. (Photo: James Bianchi)

Muscat is also being investigated over a consultancy contract with a Swiss intermediary that could have been used to disguise payments from the Vitals-Steward hospitals deal.

“There was a Gomorrah of detractors who did not want us to pursue our healthcare project,” he said, referring to the now defunct Steward privatisation, and more specifically to doctors he accuses of having spearheaded the opposition to the controversial deal. “It’s the same ‘gomorrah’ we have already faced way back… and you know the tragedy that followed when they were last faced down.” He was referring to the infamous doctors’ strike that led to the letter-bomb murder of strike-breaker Edwin Grech’s daughter in 1977.

“I have no need to write my story down,” he said as he turned to the arrest of Yorgen Fenech in 2019, which prompted his own resignation and that of his chief of staff Keith Schembri, a secret business partner of Fenech’s. “For the first time in the modern history of Malta, the State had arrested the alleged perpetrators of a high-profile murder. And yet it is who failed to arrest the killers of Karin Grech and Raymond Caruana who must account for their actions.”

Labour MEP Alex Agius Saliba. (Photo: James Bianchi)

Muscat even painted his resignation as some act of political self-immolation that allowed continuity inside Labour with the election of his successor Robert Abela, while he endured the fall-out of the 2019 political crisis. “I could have taken our people out on the streets to protest... then they would have truly seen what a protest was,” he said defiantly. “I could have called an election there and then, and we would have won it. But I am proud of having acted responsibly, as someone who put his love for his country and the party before anything else.”

He said his adversaries wanted to see him behind bars. “We’re the party whose leaders were once decreed as going to hell. Am I going to fear going to jail?” Muscat quipped.

“It’s the party of Manuel Dimech, who died in exile; the party of Alfred Sant, whom they depicted as some sort of devil; that of Dom Mintoff, whom they wanted crucified. I expect nothing better from these people, and yet we must keep showing that Labour is a movement that has united people.”

Muscat even had a direct reference for European Parliament president Roberta Metsola, whom Labour has singled out in the last months for having rashly anointed Israel’s ruthless act of self-defence in attacking Gaza soon after the Hamas attacks of October 7.

“There is a minority of people in this country who are trying to provoke us with hate, and our response should be showing the hand of friendship. Sure, they don’t take our hand in friendship, but then hug those who have murdered thousands of children... you know who I am referring to, Roberta Busuttil” – the set-up cued in his next target, former PN leader Simon Busuttil. “Oh, at least I didn’t call her Simon Metsola.”

“We’ll keeping showing them the hand of friendship, because they must learn that until they stop sowing hatred, the electorate will never trust them... we must look forward to another 10 years of a Labour government, which wants to make this country more modern, a laboratory of new technologies, that gives women the right to make decisions about their own bodies... we can’t stop progress.”

Muscat’s speech began with a a toast of the ‘Muscat era’ on achievements which, in his own words, felt “more like a 25-year period had elapsed” since Labour’s re-election: civil rights, free childcare, jobs and tourism growth, roads construction, pensions, no-tax budgets... Muscat compared his administrations’ accomplishments to the former Nationalist administration in a rousing speech intended to remind voters of his time as leader.

“I’m the first to say that we could have done some things better, but in many other things we did the best we could for Maltese families and businesses,” Muscat said, before turning to his own detractors.

“They enjoy calling me all kinds of names... corrupt is one of them,” Muscat said to the boos of the roaring crowd. “Corrupt? And yet I left Malta’s treasury overflowing with cash,” he quipped. “And what shall we call those who emptied the till? Can you imagine had a PN government been in power during COVID: from where would the government have got the money to pay workers to stay at home for an entire year?”