The prime minister has already found a place for Manuel Mallia, I’ll wager
I’ve just watched him interviewed on his party’s television station. “I’m not afraid of taking tough decisions,” he said YET AGAIN. He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself.
Then he said that he thinks once a person has paid “the political price” (what’s a political price?) for something – say, a resignation – then “after some time” he should be given another post or role because why waste his many gifts?
I find this astonishing. The Taghna Lkoll Code is completely alien. It has its own set of parameters.
In the normal, civilised world, once a politician resigns for anything other than a difference of opinion with his boss, he is finished. He is especially finished if he is made to go in disgrace.
The reason is obvious: if you are not fit to hold public office A, then you are not fit to hold public office B. If a person is unfit, then he is unfit, full-stop. He does not become fit for public office after a short and relaxing break, or because he has “paid the political price”.
Joseph Muscat’s reasoning is astonishing and perplexing because it reveals that he thinks of resignation as a punishment for the politician. No. No, no, no. It is not a punishment for the politician, Mr Prime Minister. It is the way to safeguard the public, and to protect institutions from further damage and risk of harm.
Once you understand that, Mr Prime Minister, you will also understand why politicians who have been forced to resign because of wrong-doing should not be, are not, given high public office of another sort.
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I’ll say it again: these people need a team of full-time psychiatrists with them.
Have you ever selected a team of 10-year-olds and tasked them to choose a leader and perform some simple tasks?
You might be astonished with what they come up with.
Compare it with the whole Labour cohort (who they call a movement) and see what they have come up with for the past 19 months or so.
21 & counting.
I think that with people like these at the helm, it is us who need a team of psychiatrists with us.
The prime minister may have found a new post for Mallia, but the ex minister does seem to be appeased yet.
I suspect that the horsetrading will continue for a while, probably spiced up by a few subtle and not so subtle threats.
Mallia seems to have a hold on Joey, for some unknown reason
Mallia has Malta’s worst criminals as his clients and friends.
These guys will dig everywhere to get a stranglehold grip on people who count.
I’m not worried. Recycling Mallia is bound to backfire sooner or later.
Simon Busuttil is shooting holes in every argument the PM makes.
In the immortal words of one who is no longer with us: ‘Qed jivventilah, OK siehbi?’
Or even more immortal words “Qed jahlih fuqu”
He is going to announce an amnesty for Don Manwel Mallia very soon.
The power of Don Manwel on prime minister Joseph Muscat has not gone away. It’s probably starting to work just now.
Mallia is still pulling the strings.
Mallia’s cousin Ray Zammit not demoted just reverted back
Mallia’s right hand man Scerri remains put
Mallia Chief Justice
Mallia’s government still in power
Let us hope he won’t put Mallia in charge of the Rinella Film Studios which is now lifeless. Why? Because that Nexus boy wants to get his finger deep into the pie.
It could well be any or all of these:
Appeasement
Fear
Pressure
Immaturity
Let’s not forget what happened with Dalli.
And I’ll wager it’s Chief Justice or Attorney General. Then, in four years’ time, President.
No. Criminal lawyer to the Cabinet.
Or Head of the (grandly named) Security Service.
I can’t believe this man. When is he going to grow up? I know some men take longer to mature but for goodness sake he is the Prime Minster of Malta.
When is he going to realize that some rubbish can’t be recycled and must be incinerated or buried in a landfill site?
Is he too good to the point of being stupid or is he bound to pay some dues back to him?
Is he too proud to say that his star candidate failed him and did not live up to his expectations and is not worthy of a high position in his cabinet?
He is a spoiled boy in a man’s job. He didn’t really want to be prime minister. He wanted to be a celebrity, hang out with important people and pose in family photos alongside David Cameron.
With Joseph Muscat it pays to f”ck up. You f”ck up and you get rewarded.
All the other ministers will now compete amongst themselves to f”ck up and get rewarded too. Any bets on who’s next?
Muscat has €73,000 annually to spare now.
Yeah, he will make a great door-stop.
Issa jaghmlu Minister of Boxing and Faberge Eggs.
Joseph Muscat has to act quickly qabel ma’ tisfratta d-debba,
U min jaf kemm capcpulu u xejrulu l-maktur.
He has grossly mismanaged the whole affair and the last 24 hours were the cherry on the cake – the inquiry proved useless and the same conclusion could have been reached a couple of weeks back, sparing the main protagonists further pressure and humiliation.
Pathetic indeed.
This is a desperate attempt at placating Mallia’s ire.
It is pretty obvious that Joseph is scared stiff of any possible retaliation by Mallia.
Terrified.
I would not be surprised if he were, temporarily, wearing nappies.
Temporarily?
He never grew out of them.
With his pompous sense of self, I can’t imagine Manwel sitting happily as a backbencher.
But while he stays there, I’m sure he’ll create more havoc for Muscat and all of Labour. Manwel will continue to haunt Muscat, unless it is Manwel who has dictated his new post, and Muscat continues to bow to his requests.
To me, Joey looks scared and desperate.
He is scared of Mallia’s reaction now that he was forced to reluctantly dismiss him and he is desperate to appease him.
Mallia won’t go quietly. His pride won’t allow him to.
Tghid jaghmlu “suldat tal-azzar” ukoll?
Dak trid iddahlu gol-bacir tac-Cinizi biex taghmlu suldat ta’ l-azzar.
Some things never change. Labour is one of them.
Reading between the lines, Muscat is saying, when he refers to Mallia having paid the political price, that his buddy took the rap for all the other conspirators.
So Mallia has to be compensated.
including muscat himself
The question is, are the switchers/floaters/opportunisti still boasting about voting Labour?
Where are you? What happened?
Is the Movement suddenly too liberal and progressive? I hope you feel ashamed of yourselves.
Include screwers in the list.
Muscat is afraid of Manwel. He would be risking too much were he to let Manwel roam in their midst waiting for the opportune time to strike hard and take revenge for the humiliation he is being made to suffer.
Muscat is planning to send him far away to fill the post to be vacated by Louis Galea.
We are trying to think what Mallia has on Joseph Muscat and why the Prime Minister needed to pussy-foot around the decision of removing him, left the decision in Mallia’s hands only to have his bluff called.
Then Muscat slid in a dismissal only to also add how he trusts Mallia and that he sees a position for him ‘in the future’.
Please allow me to propose that Mallia might not have anything on Joseph but it is Joseph who will not accept to have been and be seen to have been wrong to endorse Mallia. Joseph Muscat will do anything to not be seen as having made a mistake.
The contents of the Henley contract are the recent goods.
The contents of the pre-election China agreement are the older goods.
At the moment of his switch, much was being discovered as to financing channels.
Mallia would have been the contract drafter.
His priority are invisible commissions.
That has always been the case.
Joseph Muscat should stop pontificating about tough decisions.
The question is not how tough or otherwise they are. He has to go back to his oath of office. He must make decisions without fear or favour for the good of the country and not for the good of his party or his personal narcisisstic traits.
How good would it be though if Mallia turns against the PL.
If ever the criminals thought they would have it good for 5 years of protection from Ministru Mallia, they are now going to be furious and out for Muscat’s guts.
Play it safe – resident ambassador in Bucharest.
Something that just clicked for me, but as Mallia is no longer minister, then this should not preclude him from being Paul Sheehan’s defence attorney in his case against the State.
Of course, to any rational person, there would be a huge conflict of interest, and indeed I even believe that as him currently being represented by Mallia’s firm is a conflict of interest in itself, but Mallia has hardly shown any regard for ethics and the law in the last two years, has he?
[Daphne – Sheehan is not represented by Emmanuel Mallia & Associates during his trial, but by Edward Gatt of Anglu Farrugia & Associates.]
If Mallia wants the truth to come out as a way of taking revenge against the prime minister, he should tell Sheehan to dismiss his present lawyers and appoint him as defence lawyer. Then he can call all witnesses he likes and question them mercilessly.
[Daphne – He may now be just an ordinary backbencher, but this does not mean he is free to defend Sheehan. He is a key witness in the case, which precludes him from doing so.]
Manuel Mallia is silent.
I strongly believe he is obliged to explain to the public his reasons for not resigning.
His action cannot be taken lightly and I hope he will speak in our Parliament about this and give due respect to the public.
It may also shed some light on the prime minister’s involvement in this matter, and this might be the reason for his refusal to resign.
What DOES Mallia have on Jo-Jo? Compromising pictures of Joey with his boyfriends in various positions and state of (un)dress? Stockings perhaps? I wonder how big Mallia’s iced bun is going to be to keep him quiet, sprinkles and all.
[Daphne – I really don’t think that whatever it is has to do with sex. Muscat does not strike me as somebody with anything going on in that department, either one way or another. Muscat is a man who is motivated by money and power in substitute of sex. So whatever it is that Mallia has on Muscat is going to have its roots in money and power and not in sex. I would say that Mallia knows the source of some key Labour Party funding and some not quite savoury arrangement that helped put Muscat in power.]
It is indeed possible that Muscat and Mallia have reached a deal already, but that probability is now looking quite low, given that Mallia did not resign but it was the prime minister who sacked him.
If a deal had been reached, then Mallia would have done the honourable thing, and saved his own and the Prime Minister’s face. Not that these contracting parties are honest people, but it is the appearance that counts.
So I think that the Prime Minister was actually admitting failure in his negotiations with Mallia. Mallia had not accepted anything, and did not resign. He was probably not even negotiating with the Prime Minister any more on Tuesday.
Since the Prime Minister had to proceed to fire him in order to appoint Carmelo Abela and appear not weak with the public, Muscat had to resort to renew his offer to Mallia through the media to try to calm him down.
But I am sure Mallia will not be calming down. How can a criminal lawyer like Mallia, with such a long legal career in which he saved so many criminals from serving time behind bars, accept being sentenced to oblivion by an incompetent prime minister when he faces his first test in the political dock?
Mallia is a switcher himself. Nationalists who voted Labour this time are still Nationalists.
It does mean that next time their vote will go to where it belongs. So my advice: beware of switchers.
“In the normal, civilised world, once a politician resigns for anything other than a difference of opinion with his boss…”, the politician, freshly relieved of his duties, will be the last to accept a job from his very boss who had just fired him.
In the normal civilized world, private industry will not touch a disgraced politician with a ten-foot pole.
But then how can one describe Joe Muscat or Manwel Mallia as ‘normal’?