Good cop, bad cop in Labour’s propaganda show: the Stagno Navarra factor

The energetic Karl Stagno Navarra incarnated Labour’s propaganda machine during the Muscat years: Labour’s deployment of a seasoned and Nationalist-friendly voice who had been bred inside the Pietà stables during the party’s 1990s heyday, transformed party propaganda into an art which he masters with gusto.

Just as he had targeted Tony Zarb and the General Workers Union when they threatened a protest during a CHOGM meeting during the first Gonzi administration, he now fulminates against Repubblika, a pet hate of Labour supporters for their Nationalist pedigree and lack of legitimacy gained by a history of speaking truth to both PN-led and Labour-led administration.

Between 2016 and 2019 Stagno Navarra was tasked with defending people like Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, deflecting legitimate questions on their offshore companies. No wonder that inside Labour’s dark underbelly, many still believe that Panamagate was a conspiracy to destabilise their government, and that Daphne Caruana Galizia was the ultimate villain.

So he could not resist doing the same thing this week, when he singled out a priest who stopped to talk to protestors, and a journalist who was on duty reporting the event for their “presence” at the Repubblika sit-in, evoking the spectre of an imaginary PN-aligned ‘establishment’ composed of the PN’s own MPs, the church, the media and NGOs.

So instead of rebutting Repubblika’s criticism by defending the independence of the police from any political intervention, including that of over-zealous activists, on the understanding that a water-tight case against Mizzi may require more time, Labour ended up on the receiving end of criticism on the way its own media singles out journalists as enemies.

All this in a context where M.O.R. voters need to be reassured that Mizzi is still under the police radar and will not be allowed to get out scot-free.

Awkward position for Miriam Dalli

It is becoming harder to reconcile the new breed of level-headed politicians Abela is cultivating with the extreme tribalism nourished on his own media.

In fact, the uncalled-for shaming of journalist Tim Diacono ended up putting a government minister, Miriam Dalli, in an awkward situation; to the extent that she ignored Stagno Navarro’s comments on the Repubblika protest completely, and changed the topic to an unrelated matter, thus refusing to be dragged in the quagmire, even if she was unwilling or unable to immediately disassociate herself from her own party’s chief propagandist.

Yet Abela decided to nip the controversy in the bud, condemning Stagno Navarra’s tirade against Diacono. How could he not? As the PM entrusted with restoring Malta’s credentials after the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, he could not condone an attack on a journalist who was not even participating in the protest but reporting about it. So did Miriam Dalli, the face of Abela’s own squad of co-opted MPs who are to some extent detached from the Muscat era. This left Stagno Navarra with no other option but to eat humble pie and apologise.

Continuity vs. change

But this is not the end of the story, simply because this episode is a reflection of Abela’s predicament, beyond Stagno Navarra’s public entertainment slots.

The key problem for Abela is his positioning between the promise of continuity and change. Elected in his party as the ‘continuity candidate’, Abela found himself presiding over a government which by necessity had to preside over an epochal change.

And in some ways he did deliver change: first by removing former Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, then by expelling Konrad Mizzi from the party, and also putting an end to the charade which saw government condoning the removal of flowers from the Daphne shrine. This was followed by the arraignment of Keith Schembri in a case of corruption in the private sector. Even his electoral bloc has changed. For while keeping Labour’s core vote, Abela also has consolidated his party’s appeal among M.O.R. voters who recoil at the extremely partisan use of the party media.

In this sense Abela needs to be a Mr Hyde for his own partisans and a benign Dr Jekyll for more independent voters. And in circumstances like this one, he can afford to intervene as the good cop who says the right thing to compensate for the divisive actions of the bad cops.

But eventually Abela will have to choose between continuity and change. Probably Abela thinks he can only do so after securing his own mandate in the next election. But that is bound to result in more awkward situations in the next weeks and more so during the electoral campaign.

For while steps were taken to restore a degree of democratic normality, Abela has failed to send a clear message of rupture with the past by giving public recognition to the Caruana Galizia legacy. And as months pass, it becomes harder to understand why Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri have not been arraigned on cases of government corruption.

This also explains the quandary faced by Abela with regards to the summoning of Konrad Mizzi in front of the PAC. While Abela and Clyde Caruana have amply made it clear that they expect Mizzi to face the music and face questions in the committee, Labour’s representatives on the same committee have taken a soft line refusing to vote for a motion condemning Mizzi’s repeated no-shows.

And if Mizzi does in the end attend, people like Glenn Bedingfield – who for years found nothing wrong in Mizzi’s offshore investments – will have to choose whether to defend or question the disgraced former Minister.

Crucially, faced with a need to legitimise himself with the party grassroots, Abela still needs propagandists like Stagno Navarra to target an enemy, which gives them a sense of purpose especially when the official opposition is hardly perceived as a threat.

Unfortunately one dark aspect of tribalism is the constant need for an enemy to hate, mock or despise. Ridding the country of tribalism, including that festering on party-owned TV stations, could well be the precondition for real political change but that appears a step to far for a PM who needs to mobilise the party’s core vote to win an election by a large margin, possibly bigger than his predecessor’s.

Still, with polls showing him enjoying such a large and comfortable lead, does Abela really need the divisive antics which may well alienate M.O.R. voters?