Looking back at 2020 | Did Abela lift the shield of impunity?

2020 saw Konrad Mizzi kicked out of the PL’s parliamentary group, a radical change in the top brass of the police force and the entire ‘Panama gang’ facing police questioning. But the year ends with government clashing with judges conducting a public inquiry on Caruana Galizia’s assassination and the PM putting Rosianne Cutajar’s political future in the hands of the Standards Commission. Are we any closer to the truth?

In the space of a year Malta has seen the appointment of a new Prime Minister, a new leader of the Opposition, a new police commissioner, and a new State Advocate and Attorney General.

Chris Cardona is no longer a minister and resigned from deputy leader of his party. Joseph Muscat is no longer an MP while Konrad Mizzi now sits as an independent MP after being kicked out by his own party.

But even more remarkable was that Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Nexia BT’s Brian Tonna were all interrogated by the police on different spin-offs from both the Panama investigations and the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder probe. All this stems from Abela’s decision to change the top brass of the police force.

Reforming the police force

One of Robert Abela’s first actions upon becoming PM was to remove police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, whose term in office was characterised by institutional paralysis, with the police failing to investigate the Panama Papers scandal despite evidence identifying 17 Black as a client of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri’s secret Panama companies.

Cutajar’s image problem was further compounded by an inability to speak coherently to the media. The impression was that to reinforce impunity for his closest allies, Muscat had appointed an incompetent commissioner. Therefore, the appointment of a competent commissioner brings the country closer to lifting the shield of impunity for the establishment. Cutajar’s replacement, Angelo Gafà, not only comes across as articulate chief of police, but also as someone who is not held tied down by political strings.

Moreover, he was also given the tools to get his act in order. In May the police economic crimes unit was assigned 18 more officers as Malta braced itself for the tough Moneyval test in the coming months. A month later assistant police commissioner Alexandra Mamo replaced Ian Abdilla as the head of the new Financial Crimes Investigation Department. “The message is clear – we want to take things seriously. We know how much Mamo has the people’s support and that is what we want. We need someone who has people’s trust heading this department,” Gafà said upon her appointment.

While it remains unclear whether police interrogations will lead to arraignments, police are no longer hesitant in calling in the top brass to answer questions.

Even beyond the Panamagate and the Caruana Galizia murder probe, the police force has been more proactive in other cases involving organised crime, including the fuel smuggling case implicating ex-footballer Darren Debono. The police force has also investigated its own traffic branch, resulting in the arraignment of 32 officers over an overtime racket, which thrived under Gafà’s predecessor.

Sure enough, Abela is under massive pressure to clean up the country’s reputation in the wake of the Moneyval verdict. It may not just be a matter of choice for Abela but also a necessity to equip the police with tools and resources. But the change in the police force also corresponds to the raising of the political bar by Abela.

Political accountability

In June, Abela established a yardstick of political responsibility by kicking former energy minister Konrad Mizzi out of the parliamentary group immediately after new media reports linking 17 Black, the company owned by Yorgen Fenech, to Enemalta’s Montenegro wind farm project. Even more significantly was the way Mizzi was expelled: through a vote of the PL executive called by PL leader Robert Abela after Mizzi refused an earlier request to resign from the parliamentary group.

The vote was resounding: 71 voting for expulsion, one abstention and one against. Yet Abela has so far found it difficult to set a yardstick of political responsibility which is applicable to all cases. Initially he went as far as forcing Justyne Caruana to resign for her husband’s close relationship with Yorgen Fenech, only to reinstate her as minister in last month’s reshuffle. The year ends with Robert Abela leaving the fate of junior Minister Rosianne Cutajar in the hands of the Commissioner for Standards in Public life after a story linking her to a property deal involving Fenech.

Between risk and opportunity

The lifting of impunity comes at a political risk for Abela who had presented himself as the “continuity candidate” in the contest for the party’s leadership. Any failure to bring closure to the Panama saga may well be blamed on his reluctance to close in on his predecessor and his closest allies. Abela, who still lacks political legitimacy from a general election, may also be too weak to impose his leadership on elements in his party whose first loyalty is still towards his predecessor.

In a bizarre balancing act, Abela may find himself fanning the flames of partisans divisions in order to ingratiate himself with the core vote. This explains why he was so hesitant on congratulating Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola on becoming first vice-president of the European Parliament, and why he is not keen on a monument for Daphne Caruana Galizia. In this way Abela risks coming across as a more divisive leader than Muscat, who could take core voters for granted in his bid to reach out to political moderates.

While this path is full of risks for Abela, especially if it collides with that of his predecessor Joseph Muscat, it is also represents a golden opportunity. For ironically by delivering on good governance, Abela may yet consolidate Labour’s majority by restoring his party’s credibility.

Still police action may raise expectations of a breakthrough which may never happen, especially in complex cases related to money laundering, especially after a four-year delay in investigations paralyzed by the culture of impunity which characterised the Muscat era.

By removing the shield of impunity, which protected them, he may well have succeeded in eroding blind trust especially with regards to Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, who unlike Muscat who remains popular, no longer enjoy the full trust of Labour supporters

Moreover for a segment of activists, nothing short of delivering Muscat’s head will satisfy their thirst for justice or vengeance, something which may never happen either because Muscat was not directly implicated in the mess he tolerated or because he has covered his trail.

Truth starting to catch up

While no substantial progress has been done to bringing closure to Panamagate, truth has started catching up with the protagonists of the panama papers, with Keith Schembri who originally denied knowing about the existence of 17 Black, now admitting that he had himself indicated it to Nexia BT for inclusion in documentation identifying the clients of his company.

Both Schembri and Muscat have now admitted knowing that Yorgen Fenech was the owner of the company, although it remains unclear when Muscat actually got to know about it, even if Schembri insists that he had never done anything behind his PM’s back. Schembri still professes his innocence, downplaying his offshore interests. But his admissions go a long way from the initial denials.

Missing links

Yet there remains a long way to go. So far it remains unclear whether the police are investigating leaks related to the Caruana Galizia murder probe possibly related to Schembri’s participation in Security Services meetings. It remains to be seen whether any public official was actively obstructing justice and whether an attempt had been made to frame former Labour deputy leader Chris Cardona through a note conveyed to Yorgen Fenech by his doctor.

Moreover, a number of pieces in the jigsaw remain missing. One glaring gap in investigations is the failure so far to bring the bombmakers to book, despite trails leading in a particular direction. A joint investigation by the Times of Malta and MaltaToday has shown how the Agius brothers, who police believe to be the heads of a dangerous organised crime group, have been identified as part of the conspiracy that supplied the bomb used to assassinate Caruana Galizia in 2017. Abela, who legally represented the brothers, is looking into whether he should abstain from deciding on a presidential pardon that is expected to name his former clients.

Abela’s balancing act

Still, Abela may well be playing an intelligent game, avoiding frontal confrontation while letting the police do their work. By removing the shield of impunity, which protected them, he may well have succeeded in eroding blind trust especially with regards to Schembri and Mizzi, who unlike Muscat who remains popular, no longer enjoy the full trust of Labour supporters.

The fact that Abela could rid himself of Konrad Mizzi who had been elected party deputy leader in 2016, without any protest from the rank and file is telling. Abela may well be incrementally solidifying his grip in the party, without making any sharp political break.

The spectre haunting Abela

Abela remains averse to any political verdict on the Muscat years. That may explain his aversion to a public inquiry which has grilled public officials involved in the administration’s most controversial deals. With the judges refusing to back down from extending their own deadline, Abela has issued a statement holding judges responsible for their action, in what could be interpreted as a veiled threat which could re-ignite civil society protests. This raises the question: does Abela fear a damning judgement of his predecessor’s term in office or is he simply placating diehards by hitting out at the inquiry associated with the Caruana Galizia family? But in the process Abela risks sending mixed messages to a crowd which still adores Muscat and would not forgive Abela if he touches their idol. In the end, this suggests that impunity may survive in another form: a political immunity for Muscat from any internal criticism.

The problem for Abela remains that the party faithful have never received a strong political message from above that aspects of Muscat’s legacy were problematic and some still blindly trust him.

This includes Muscat’s ideological legacy, which blurred the lines between politics, big business and possibly organised crime. This has filtered down Labour’s grassroots amongst those who find nothing wrong in impropriety as long as it contributes to economic growth and prosperity. This may well weaken any attempt by Abela to reinvigorate his party’s moral credentials and may well create fertile ground for scandal in the future.

Yet to Abela’s credit 2020 has passed without any new major corruption scandal hitting the Labour party, which suggests that the party has learnt from its mistakes. For now.