Joseph Muscat sought to ridicule the President, not the Leader of the Opposition
By writing that speech for the president to read at the state opening of parliament this morning, it was not the Leader of the Opposition who the prime minister sought to humiliate and embarrass so much as the president himself.
Muscat obliged Abela (the president should have refused and asked for the speech to be changed, but he did not) to read out a pettily partisan speech full of insults to the man who made him president, party electoral slogans and catch-phrases, and ridiculous, I’m-on-drugs talk about being positive.
The speech went down like a bomb and has been heavily criticised. Muscat looks bad for writing it, but Abela looks worse for reading it out. And that is exactly what Muscat wanted.
We forget how much Muscat despises Abela, how Abela dislikes him. Not only were they rivals in the party leadership election, but more crucially – and this is the very important bit that everyone forgets even if they knew it at all – Muscat can’t stand his guts because he sees Abela as the Labour politician who defected to the pro-EU membership camp and worked towards that end while Muscat was fighting to achieve the opposite goal and keep us out.
Read my column about this in The Malta Independent on Sunday, tomorrow.
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A most evil dwarf.
Your hatred for anything Labour begs belief. You believe that you are a good reporter, but your articles are trash. Hope that one day soon you have to suck up your own bile
[Daphne – BEGGARS, Norman, beggars.]
Suck up your own bile?
Europe is watching the extremism and hatred coming out of the National Socialist party. The next Jobbik?
Norman you could not be further away from the truth. It would be you who will realize that what you are saying is the result of a brainwashed mind played upon by the muviment you voted for.
Joseph is well on the dictatorial path, leading you and thousands of others who are unable to see past their noses and us who did not vote for it, into a communist state nicknamed a second republic. Daphne is one of the few who is able to call a spade a spade without considering her safety first.
OK think realistically now, Norman. Do you honestly think that the speech our President read out was appropriate? Nobody I’ve spoken to does and the few Labour voters I spoke to either pretended not to know about out or said “heq I don’t know” and shut up.
I thought it was shameful.
It’s like they wrote “I am President of Malta and I think GonziPN sucks and now it’s time for happy times so let’s all drink the coolade, so suck that bitches, time for Malta united, a Republic tan-Number two”.
Well done, Daphne, for your observant mind. Even if it were mere speculation, Norman, she is to be congratulated for giving MEANING to what seems ordinary and commonplace.
She’s far from a reporter, she’s a journalist, and among the very best we have as far as I can see.
This case is similar to that of Deborah Schembri being specifically selected to carry the Mass offering to the Archbishop after being the front-line representative of the pro-divorce campaign. Nothing wrong in that except that the occasion did not warrant it. Of course this is all subjective but you have to be really crass to call such articles and opinions trash.
Seeing a meaning in things is what makes life interesting. The more so when these things have a bearing on society’s (political) life. If you really believe in the freedom of expression you should be open-minded enough to at least tolerate (if not accept) such opinions and not “hope that one day soon you have to suck up your own bile.”
Of course you have the freedom to say that, but it’s despicable of you and your likes to abolish that freedom for others who disagree with you. The Inquisition (whether religious or political) has been denounced and abolished by all decent persons and nations a long time ago.
After all only time and history will be able to tell (if at all) whose opinion was right. Until then, grow up, open your mind and learn to evaluate opinions and then decide for yourself and not invoke some superior ‘authority’ to decide for you.
Honestly, some people’s fixation with bile makes me come up with disgusting conclusions.
Norman, hatred ghandekk int u hmieg tal-partit li zzomm mieghu. Imissu jisthi l-President jaqra dak l-ispeech wara li Dr Gonzi u l-partit Nazzjonalista tawh l-ghola kariga tal-pajjiz. Demel kollha kemm intom.
Maybe your readers can agree with me that on Saturday morning we witnessed a surreal situation in Parliament.
On the one hand, there was Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, aged 39, leading the majority of 39.
Elsewhere in the same chamber, in front of him, there were the three men whom he had managed to politically defeat, and whose spirit he had seriously hurt, in different situations, and over whom he now had some form of strong control:
1. Dr. George Abela The President of the Republic. Muscat had defeated Dr. Abela in the race for the leadership of the Malta Labour Party.
2. Dr. Lawrence Gonzi. The Prime Minister he defeated in the elections on 9 March. Muscat now has a 9 seat majority over the opposition led by Dr. Gonzi.
3. Dr. Anglu Farrugia. The Speaker of the House. Dr. Farrugia had claimed that he had been ‘politically assassinated’ by Muscat after Farrugia was asked to resign from Deputy Leader of the Malta Labour Party in December last year.
I believe I could see Muscat gloating at the spectacle as it unfolded in front of him.
Yes, gloat he did. Much like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Gaddafi.
Yep! He is calculating. But has he miscalculated our intelligence?
Meanwhile, out of Hollande’s current scandal, come voices asking for moral conduct in political affairs to be codified.. asking for ineligibility for public office for life and criminal sanctions for anyone caught lying. The base line, as it should be, is that Hollande is responsible, that a cabinet reshuffle is far from acceptable in response, and that if he knew about Cahuzac’s lie and covered up for him: he lied too, and if he didn’t know: he was incompetent and a leader that subordinates felt they could easily lie to.
The question is, that any covenant based on trust is, from this discovery on, untenable: towards the parties in Opposition, but towards the electorate first and foremost.
Pity that NOT MORE THAN THREE JOURNALISTS, including Daphne, and the NP billboards, saw fit to point their finger at Joseph Muscat in this vein. Pity? shame? Country gone to the dogs…
Every time Joseph Muscat gloats, let him know this: he will be brought to account by the people he is lying to, and once his own people have the blindfold removed from their own eyes, they will be far less accommodating with him than the NP has been to-date.
His friend Hollande is facing accusations based on the very same processes we are seeing put into place today: Cahuzac would have failed the meritocracy test in the States. Even internally, his ministers are redefining what constitutes meritocracy.
The NP has absolutely nothing to apologise for in taking the approach it did with regards to the blatant lying and the unilateral appointment of Anglu as speaker. The utter weakness of the general press is what is allowing Joseph Muscat to go step after step unchallenged.
So now what? Is the Anglu Farrugia appointment constitutionally correct or not? Are Parliamentary proceedings to hold water or not?
and more importantly:
4. Jason Micallef was not elected.
Absolutely. Just begs the question – So what was Malta’s President doing while GonziPN was taking the country to the dogs? Like a self-denouncement speech you’d hear from someone who has undergone a re-education exercise under a totalitarian regime.
Opening the Kitchen Garden and going for fun runs
And going off to the Andes to tile a few bathrooms.
Disgrace. I can barely get over the fact that this cheap lot will be in government for a full five years and then this. I switched off a few minutes into the speech, a speech full of spite, a blatant exercise in rubbing salt in the wounds of us all who prayed for a miracle to happen on March 9th.
Abela should know better; he should have ensured such crap was never made public. Labour stinks, fullstop.
Why don’t PN try to change the mandate from 5 to 3 years like it is in Australia? It makes more sense. Most governments in Oz win two mandates in a row anyway, but by having such a short mandate it gives the electorate the chance to vote out a patently bad government such as this one.
Of course, knowing each other the way they do, the President is under constant psychological pressure of removal from office at some point or another.
Well, he showed some political backbone once, perhaps he will, one day, decide that posterity is a greater rewarder than Joseph Muscat.
I didn’t hear the speech. What did he say?
http://tinyurl.com/c3z3p7j
Well, Daph, you can’t really blame Muscat, can you?
I mean – is there someone who does not dislike George Abela?!
(Apart from his chummy old buddy Dominic Fenech, that is.)
It all so terribly frightening as it all unfolds………
Such spite is typical of very anal personalities who have acute shortcomings, perceived or logged, in a particular department. I know it sounds crude but that’s the way it is.
They horde their opportunities to get plastic thrills in systematic fashion, with the due precision reserved for military attacks by their little tin soldiers, meticulously placed, colours stripped and repainted, or painted over.
The battleground is less imaginary, people’s lives with about the same value as that of the tin soldiers. The thrill is insufficient. The experience is logged as research. On to the next level.
He didn’t have to twist his arm, I’m sure. If the President had any balls at all, surely he would have edited the partisan comments.
What I think is they are true birds of a feather. The only gentleman was Dr Lawrnce Gonzi who believed that Malta had truly changed, but Dr Gonzi had too much on his plate to be connected. Isn’t that that he is blamed with? Shame on them.
The speech was handed to him just before he read it out.
Officially.
Exactly.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130406/local/pn-critical-of-political-slogans-in-president-s-address.464430
They wrote a diabolical speech for The president to read.
A speech full of provocative insinuations against the now Opposition while at the same time it is claimed that the speech is made to faster unity.
Wouldn’t it have been a noble act on the part of The President had he refused to read the speech.
The speech has done more harm than good particularly as far as unity is concerned.
it insults the intellegence to see The President of the Republic of Malta SEATED next to The Speaker of the House, who was hand picked by the PM for being one of the inner clique, without consulting the Opposition as the PM was duty bound to do according to the Constitution, which Constitution The President is duty bound to protect, telling the Nation that the time of ‘Arrogant Adimnistration’ and ‘Inner Clique’ are over. Nothing can be further away from the truth.
Why do these peoply like to make a mockery of The Presidency, Parliament and other things that are noble in our country.
Perhaps Muscat is pushing his luck a bit too far.
All the enemies one makes on his way up, he will have to meet them on his way down.
It is hard to get to the top but harder still to stay there.
Let Muscat enjoy his beginner’s luck.
I have never heard the opening speeches given in parliament for the new legislature, but was shocked as I heard the first words being read by Abela.
The speech was so poorly written and full of hatred and patronizing comments that I felt sick and could not watch any longer. It’s like JM wanted to really rub it in. Lets see what you’re made of, you sick f#ck.
I never went past the first opening salvo – disgusted and hurt beyond anything said during the whole election campaign.
Hope to live to see those words stuffed down the president’s and Muscat’s throats. Positive campaign my arse.
The President said that in spite of a huge margin of victory, the government will not treat the Opposition as irrelevant or try to steam roll it.
What sort of statement is that?
I was getting to admire Dr. George Abela for all the work he has done with the local charities but this has put my mind back in reverse and have put him right back where he belongs i.e. in the Labour skip.
I hope that the above eye-opener will remind all PN MPs that any offer that comes from Muscat in the name of “Malta taghana l-koll” is a hidden effort for him to obtain (when the time comes) a 2/3rd majority in a parliamentary vote to enable him to ride rughshod over the Constiution. That is why he will be picking on Nationalist Members of Parliament.
I hope that no one will follow the Pied Piper of Hamilin.
Simple: few people will know that it is the prime minister who writes the speech and the president just reads it out. So Muscat still looks like he wants ghaqda while at the same time forcing that on the president while the president obliged, hoping to get another five years living in luxury off the Maltese people.
Unfortuanately those are the true colours of Muscat. The President should have never accepted to read that speech. I would have rather handed in my resignation and ended my presidency in honours, that keep my seat and lose integrity.
It is obvious that some people speak through their hats. I know for a fact that the president cannot edit or re-phrase anything from the speech handed over by the prime minister. He is just a mouthpiece at that moment. There were instances in the past (also under a labour government) when the President only got to know of the then prime minister’s intentions when he was actually reading the speech.
I vote Nationalist and still believe that Dr. George Abela is a gentleman.
SHAME on the president, for stooping so low.
I’ve always thought Abela to be a fake. His true colours are starting to come out. Some think Gonzi had nominated him as President to neutralise his opposition so to speak.
But Muscat had already won the leadership race and Abela was not going to work with Muscat as leader.
By nominating him, Gonzi may have been trying to do precisely what Muscat is saying he is doing whilst doing the exact opposite. Not that I believe that appointing Abela was a matter of meritocracy. What had he done for the country?
All I remember him for is acting as a lawyer for the GWU. Surely there were persons who were more worthy than he?
Not to mention the fact that as a relatively young president, his cost is one that our coffers is likely to have to bear for many years with all the perks that ex presidents have.
I remember thinking that if Abela truly wanted to be of service to the country he wouldn’t have accepted the offer and got his hands dirty just a little bit. But then I suppose the carrot of President is too big to decline.
The way to hell is paved with good intentions, and without a doubt this is Gonzi’s hell. The man deserved more respect. I only hope he can rise above all this and in bowing out of politics, which it seems he is intent on doing, he remains supportive to his successor whoever that may be.
Just asking…where 2 A.D.C.`S necessary in the House? I thought uniformed persons were not allowed in the Chambers! AFM seem to have a surplus number of officers.
When the time came for the President to stand up and be counted, he failed.
He NEVER deserved the job. To thank Dr. Gonzi who stuck his neck out and made him president, he did this.
I’m pretty sure that the scheming Muscat will be bragging when a project planned and quasi-implemented by the previous administration bears fruit.
Take the interconnector and Marsa station. What more than half of the electorate didn’t appreciate is that Marsa is running at 50% and will be shut down when the interconector is up and running.
Muscat will then come out boasting how instrumental Labour has been to decommission Marsa. But then, more than half of the population is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Where can I find a transcript or a video of the speech?
[Daphne – http://tinyurl.com/c3z3p7j ]
Thank you.
re Norman Cassar– not only is Daphne a good reporter but an excellent and most intelligent one. Wish there are more like her.
http://zekzik.com/2013/04/07/il-kredibilta-tal-president-fin-nofs/
Can I get hold of a copy of the presidents speech anywhere?
[Daphne – http://tinyurl.com/c3z3p7j ]
I never understood why people keep hailing Dr Abela as the best president ever?
I think he is the worst we ever had. He never took any position. At the height of the political crisis he went abroad for charity work. He is always sitting on the fence and now more than ever he proved that he is a puppet.
The President is dead. Long live the Second Republic