Exactly what is the police minister’s chief of staff doing in this picture?
Chiefs of staff are private secretariat employees who should always, and generally do, stay behind the scenes. Businessman Silvio ‘Do You Know Who I Am’ Scerri, the police minister’s chief of staff, appears to believe he is an exception.
Do you know why he makes a point of making himself as visible as possible as the power behind, if not actually on, Manuel Mallia’s throne? It’s because that is the way small-island society works. What Scerri is doing here is visibly establishing himself as a fulcrum of power and influence.
People will defer to him and, because Manuel Mallia presents him as an equal rather than as an office subordinate (he’s seated at his immediate right hand in a context where he has no place being at all, in this photograph), Scerri makes it clear that he is untouchable, by the police or any other form of authority. Meanwhile, influential electors will defer to him, court him and make him offers.
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Silvio is only trying very hard to correct his impression that not enough people know who he is and that he must do something about it.
Ezatt li ridt nghid f’ post iehor. Kieku kellna xi armata kbira nohorgu kollox biex nuru x’ power ghandna bhalma jaghmlu shabhom ic-Cinizi, Koreani ecc
“Influential electors will defer to him, court him and make him offers” – the very essence of ‘laghqizmu’.
That way, one does not have to make direct offers to the boss.
Those sunglasses are ridiculous.
He must be fearing freak blindness from Rays gone astray.
Spot the clown…..
Well sombody behind him is keeping a safe distance.
Now how about that question again, what the hell is he there for?
Silvio wants to make sure that all the police officers will recognise him as soon as as they see him.
Silvio Scerri wants them to know who is in charge, and that aside from transfers he is also now running the finances.