The vote in parliament is just a breather for the government

Sueddeutsche Zeitung carried a piece yesterday about the confidence vote in Malta’s parliament.

A translation of the article follows below.

NO MORE THAN A RESPITE

– The Maltese government survives a no-confidence vote brought by the Opposition because of the Panama revelations.

By Oliver Meiler, Rome

For 13 hours without pause the Maltese parliament has debated the Panama Papers. Old coals have been raked over and fresh accusations of falsehood have been made. Then a vote was taken late on Monday night, and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s government survived the confidence vote brought by the Opposition against the entire cabinet, with 38 votes to 31.

But it’s just a breather, nothing more. The public outrage on the island will not die down quite so quickly. Two members of Muscat’s government have shell companies in Panama, sheltered by trusts in New Zealand. People are talking about it, and the prime minister and his Labour Party are under pressure. The owners of those Panama companies are energy and health minister Konrad Mizzi and the prime minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri. They have admitted to owning the companies, but say they have not done anything illegal.

The two are Muscat’s most loyal companions among the entire government. His fate hinges on theirs, so the 42-year-old head of government is trying to ride out the worst crisis of a tenure that has been quite successful so far. In his speech to parliament (before the vote), Muscat did not mention the Panama Papers once. Instead he spoke about his merits as premier, and claimed that the Opposition itself is entangled in questionable issues.

The Opposition leader accused Muscat of being in denial. “Although we have lost the vote,” Simon Busuttil said, “we have given the people a voice and won the hearts and minds of citizens.” This is certainly not the case. In a survey by the newspaper The Malta Independent, over 41 percent of respondents said they think their government is corrupt. But perhaps the other half of the population, which supports the Labour Party, sees the Opposition as corrupt.

After winning the vote, Joseph Muscat said that victory does not free him from having to decide on anti-corruption measures, but that he will not allow the Opposition to dictate to him the decision on his cabinet colleagues’ future. A few weeks ago, Muscat also promised that he would appoint an “independent international company” to examine the case, and that he would use the conclusions of the audit as the basis for his decision. So far, however, he has done nothing.

The blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia, who had reported on Mizzi’s offshore companies prior to the publication of the Panama Papers, writes in The Malta Independent: “The elected government of Malta is lying to us constantly, brazenly and shamelessly. But we tolerate it, because Maltese society is influenced by the Middle Eastern mentality and not the European.” An independent parliamentarian has said that she bring before parliament another motion of no confidence – this time, in Konrad Mizzi alone.