Bartolo missive on rudderless Labour appears to depict Abela as ‘half-hearted captain’

Yet another missive from former Labour minister Evarist Bartolo – written in his now customary Facebook posts – appears to take a dig at the Labour premiership Robert Abela.

Bartolo, longtime education minister who in his twilight years was foreign minister, appeared to refer to Labour’s current state as “a ship in the middle of the ocean with a half-hearted captain.”

No specific mention of Abela, although the metaphor is suitable for the seafaring prime minister, the owner of a motoryacht.

The PN media was quick to latch on to the status update as a direct reference to Abela, who assumed the leadership in 2020 and was re-elected in 2022, during which Bartolo failed to regain his seat.

“But the crew is losing trust in him. There is no enthusiasm from anyone to take his role,” Bartolo wrote in his typically coded fashion – again a muted reference to severed alliances within Abela’s PL.

“The passengers can choose a new captain and crew,” Bartolo now said, referring to voters and the PN – as well as two recent surveys in which pointed to a lack of trust in Opposition leader Bernard grech. “But they do not have faith in those who say they are ready to commandeer the ship. Even more passengers are losing trust in those who say they are capabale of steering the ship.”

Forecast for Bartolo? Stormy seas and a rudderless boat it seems. “This boat is going to get taken over by the current, seas and winds.”

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Freed from the shackles of organised politics, Bartolo has become a more outspoken – if diplomatic – critic of some of his party’s stances.

But even as minister during the political crisis of 2019, he was clear that Labour had to expel members of the Muscat clique which he had dubbed “murderers” and “money-launderers”. Those close to Muscat and former chief of staff Keith Schembri at the time, chiefly the unofficial OPM envoy to Libya Neville Gafà, responded in kind by hitting out at Bartolo.