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Eddie Fenech Adami
After last year’s spectacular high as the successful captain who steered Malta into Europe, this year was an absolute downer for the man who changed the face of Maltese politics in the last two decades.
At the end of his political career, Eddie Fenech Adami was proved wrong to have intervened personally in the investigations into the attempted murder of his personal assistant, Richard Cachia Caruana. Even worse, he acted like a bad loser.
With the case unsolved and Meinrad Calleja found not guilty, Fenech Adami’s knee-jerk reaction after the verdict last February was to declare himself against the jury system, while suggesting that Cabinet should remove it altogether.
“At best it smacks of sour grapes, and at worst of contempt,” The Times commented.
Opposition leader Alfred Sant also got away with an astonishing allegation that, despite Fenech Adami’s threats to sue, remained unchallenged in court: that the then Prime Minister had been blackmailed by Zeppi l-Hafi.
Then came his resignation on his seventieth birthday, with tear-jerking documentaries on the Nationalist TV station for the party faithful and plaudits from all over the place.
And yet, for those who were quick to get emotional about his departure from public life, the Catholic lawyer from Birkirkara made a comeback in less time than his former parliamentary seat took to get used to the new premier.
On 4 April, he was sworn in as President of the Republic, much to the resentment of a great part of the nation, including loyal Nationalist pundits. Appointed by his own anointed successor, Fenech Adami was greeted for his first official ceremony as President with Opposition members facing him wearing black in protest to what Sant described as “a vulgar appointment”. For his pale blue admirers, it was the former premier’s weak point, that of falling to the temptation of clinging to power instead of bowing out gracefully.
Since then he has barely made any impact on the public sphere, much unlike his flamboyant predecessor, Guido de Marco, who never missed a photo opportunity and enjoyed every minute of limelight inside and outside the Palace.
Fenech Adami’s wife, Mary, was less than enthusiastic about moving to the Presidential Palace.
“It’s difficult to settle there but if God wills we have five years to do it,” she had said.
They settled within months, although it will take more for a great part of the population to come to terms with it.
Lawrence Gonzi
As expected, the former President of Azzjoni Kattolika took over Fenech Adami’s seat at the helm of the Nationalist Party without much difficulty.
His contenders, Louis Galea and John Dalli, were ousted with an overwhelming vote for Gonzi, who garnered 59.1 per cent of the 860 votes cast for the leadership election, more than his predecessor got in the first round 27 years ago.
“We’re at the start of a new era, both for our country and for our party,” 50-year-old Gonzi said, promising “a new way of doing politics” and of having more contact with the people.
But despite a fleeting official visit to the Labour Party headquarters on the morrow of his appointment in what was seen as a much hoped for gesture of national reconciliation, Gonzi quickly showed he would not live up to his pledge.
The day he was sworn in as Prime Minister on 23 March he appointed a Cabinet of continuity; with the unwise decision of taking the Finance Ministry in his hands after his leadership rival, John Dalli, refused to retain the ministry and Josef Bonnici refused to get himself demoted to Parliamentary Secretary.
Visibly conditioned by the leadership race assaults on his notoriety for being indecisive, a picture of Gonzi being overtaken by events, rather than in charge of them, soon emerged.
Less then a week after his swearing in, he appointed his predecessor as President, drawing flak from all quarters of society and dumping his self-declared vow to modernise politics for good. Significantly he did not get one round of applause from the government bench during his emotional defence of Fenech Adami in Parliament.
The way he dealt with the Dalli affair did not serve much to establish him as a sharp decision maker. Gonzi left his foreign minister dangling for a whole month before pushing him to resign amid snowballing revelations about his family’s contract with an Iranian shipping company and about air tickets bought by his ministry from a family-owned tourist agency.
To his credit, with Dalli’s resignation, Gonzi did establish a new ethical benchmark against which his government will now be publicly judged.
Apart from the debilitating deficit, Fenech Adami’s legacy included the Dar Malta project – a Lm9 million government spending spree on a dilapidated asbestos-filled building opposite the European Commission. The purchase was finalised by Gonzi in a much-lambasted decision that vented the flames of public disgruntlement.
He added more fuel to the fire by announcing that he might soon spend more millions on a new parliament to replace the bombed Royal Opera House. The deal he negotiated directly with Skanska for the construction of the Mater Dei hospital ruined his show further.
His last hot plate for this year was inevitably the budget, and it promises some eventful weeks in the year to come. Having failed to secure a social pact, Gonzi decided to go it alone and scrap part of the labour law which gives workers the right to get public holidays falling on weekends added to their vacation leave, potentially provoking industrial unrest when he implements it.
And it is undoubtedly the budget, Gonzi’s formula for the recovery of Malta’s ailing economy, the number one priority that will make or break him as Prime Minister in the years to come, when before casting its vote, the electorate will have to make its own calculations as to whether it is wealthier or poorer.
In the meantime, Gonzi would do well to open up his party to a more European way of doing politics and prove to the pro-membership voters of a year and a half ago that they were right.
Richard Cachia Caruana
The spin master affectionately known as RCC has lost his master, and boy, does it show? With Fenech Adami’s resignation, the St Edwards-educated bachelor has found himself distanced from Castille, in Brussels to be exact, and this year he ended up spinning to save his own face.
With the case of his own attempted murder unsolved and doomed to remain so, Richard Cachia Caruana became the focus of attention surrounding the Dar Malta project controversy, accused as he was by John Dalli that he had “conceived, controlled and pushed” the Lm9 million purchase (even though the latter then swallowed his words).
For once, the only unelected Cabinet member was under public scrutiny as he had to reply to the Opposition’s questions in the Parliamentary Accounts Committee grilling about the controversial Brussels purchase.
Although Cachia Caruana insisted he did not choose the property himself at 25, Rue Archimede, Peter Caruana Galizia – the government-commissioned lawyer –actually said that Malta’s Permanent Representative to the EU “was definitely involved” in the choice of the building.
Cachia Caruana also approved the appointment of architect Martin Xuereb for the project – the same architect who had restored his historic Mdina residence and built him a swimming pool on top of an archaeological prime site – giving further vent to the Opposition’s ‘friends of friends’ battle cry.
To his credit, since Gonzi kept him at an arm’s length from the Prime Minister’s office, government has made a whole mess of the murky business of spinning although that does not mean it has become more transparent.
Loathed by a good part of his former Castille office functionaries, Cachia Caruana’s bulldozer-style backstage manoeuvring and his obtrusive attention to detail in government’s day-to-day running were evidently missing over the last 12 months.
Arnold Cassola
The Secretary General of the European Greens and Alternattiva Demokratika’s candidate for the European Parliament election made political history this year with an unprecedented 23,000 first count votes.
It was a clear, unambiguous protest vote against the government and the Nationalist Party, but what is most significant is that protest votes did not go to the Labour Party but to Alternattiva Demokratika, with the Green party getting the best share of votes ever, even though it fell short of getting its sole candidate elected with a total of 29,000 votes.
The result - a humiliating one for the Nationalist government - reflected the wave of disgruntlement that had been building up since last year’s general election perfectly, where the pro-EU voters had no other choice but to vote for the ruling Nationalist party to secure EU membership.
This time around it was a different game altogether. With no government at stake and no appeal from Labour for the pale blue disgruntled voters, the Professor of Maltese provided voters with a unique opportunity to give a veritable jolt to party politics as we know it here, and to spit in the face of the PN’s scare tactics.
The question is whether Cassola and his party chief, Harry Vassallo, will retain their electoral base after such a spectacular victory. Everything indicates that they won’t – with Cassola virtually disappearing from the public scene and the whole party on virtual sleep mode, Alternattiva is making it clear there will never be a repeat of this year.
The Illegal Immigrant
The other, who is not us, anything but us. The year in which we joined Europe we ended up flooded by hundreds of non-Europeans in what is increasingly being perceived as a national threat even by some moderate voices.
The number of boat people reaching Maltese shores reached 1,400 this year, at times stretching the country’s police and armed forces to the limit, particularly in summer.
Images of dehydrated children and sun-burnt immigrants being escorted to detention centres generated anxiety among parts of society, with some resorting to racism and downright xenophobia, as the government’s detention policy on its own proves to be inconsequential in the face of what is a global problem.
Yet the Home Affairs Minister’s ‘deterring’ detention and repatriation policy was cleared by Magistrate Abigail Lofaro in her inquiry concluded this year into the controversial deportation of 450 Eritreans in 2002.
According to an Amnesty International report on the war-torn African nation published earlier this year, deportees flown back home from Malta were greeted by army officials and sentenced to long periods of horrific torture.
The Lofaro inquiry was launched in response to outcry following Amnesty’s report against the narrow terms of reference of legality. Indeed, the magistrate found nothing illegal in the Refugee Commission’s and the Maltese government’s decision to deport the Eritreans.
In fact The Lofaro report goes through the legal obligations of the Maltese authorities in the Maltese legal framework. Little is said about the international obligations of the Maltese government with regards to deporting Eritreans to an unsure fate in Eritrea, and what should have been done according to international UN conventions on protection from torture and inhumane treatment.
Meanwhile Malta and Italy kept sending immigrants to each other in disputes that arose over the responsibility for illegal immigrants detention and eventual repatriation, while Libya - a veritable departure point for millions of boat people - is being turned into the immigrants’ dumping ground.
The arrival of new boatloads of migrants will fuel more xenophobic fears, and the debate this year has indeed balanced itself out on the fear of both economic burden and cultural infiltration.
Addressing both concerns as the root of Maltese discomfort with the arriving asylum seekers is a factor which underpins any form of solution the Maltese government will aim for in the immigration debate. Tackling racism and xenophobia is essential for the integration of recognised refugees into Maltese society, and to win the support of Maltese society towards the government’s efforts in addressing the incoming migratory flow.
It is also true that Malta has too few resources to cope with the increasing migration flow to the Southern flank of the EU. It should be taking front stage in the European forum to call attention to the growing strain on its resources. But there is also need for a re-thinking of its refugee policy: one that does not seek to contain a problem, but that manages the migratory flow in a joint-European effort that shares such a global responsibility in the face of glaring global inequalities.
Norman Lowell
The loony Nazi immigrant-hater had his racist visions of Imperium Europa endorsed by a shocking 1,600 first preference voters in the European Parliament election.
With his eccentric articulation of cheap nihilist philosophy and skewed historical analysis, Norman Lowell attracted not only the votes of like-minded fascists but also of some of the disgruntled middle class floating voters who could not connect with the mainstream political parties at a time of widespread disillusionment.
The constant flow of illegal immigrants only served to give further prominence to the far right martial arts expert and former banker who believes the Holocaust was ‘a holy hoax’ turning him into the Maltese version of Le Pen the French and Haider the Austrian.
“My election to the European Parliament is the only opportunity to prevent Malta from becoming a Haiti of the Mediterranean, thanks to the priests and monsignors who have succeeded in unleashing these Africans in our midst,” Lowell said when he launched his campaign at Ta’ Fra Ben in Qawra surrounded by his loyal core of black clad hard-line Nazis. “They are a financial and economic burden, as they take work in factories at half our wages as Maltese get fired in their hundreds. Then at night, they are f****** our women.”
To the news that he might be arrested for inciting racial hatred when he said the Maltese should boycott businesses that employ illegal immigrants, Lowell replied with the voice of martyrdom: “It would be the best thing for the movement. I pray to my God that the police pick me up. I am waiting with bated breath. Imagine Norman Lowell being arrested for saying the Maltese should boycott businesses that employ illegal immigrants and refugees.”
Luckily for common sense, he was not arrested although by now he has become a household name.
“It is obvious the two prostitutes (PN and MLP) and the Knisja Kattolika Korrotta (Corrupt Catholic Church) are worried. Because the people are stirring.”
Indeed, all 1,600 of them.
Joe Zahra
The private investigator, former police officer and turncoat freemason turned investigations onto himself when he produced a three-page report for Simed alleging bribery in the award of the multi-million liri tender for the supply of medical equipment at the Mater Dei Hospital.
Joe Zahra, 50, allegedly traced a triangle of corruption featuring the Director of Contracts Joseph Spiteri, his daughter Claudine Cassar, and Bastjan Dalli, brother to Nationalist MP John Dalli.
He alleged that all three were involved in meetings with INSO operations director Marco Fontanelli in Naples and Florence - a direct competitor of Simed in the tender bid - with mention being made of EUR2.3 million being stashed in a Verona bank through a swift transaction from London on 30 December last year.
Under investigation by Police Commissioner John Rizzo however, Zahra’s concoction did not stand up to the test of truth, landing him in court last July charged of fabricating evidence and with accusing people of crimes they didn’t commit.
Zahra was also a key component in Lou Bondi’s team of Bondiplus (produced by ‘Where’s Everybody?’) over the last years. His techniques included covert filming, entrapment, and undercover infiltration in restricted circles – the most notable being a lodge of Freemasons and allegedly a satanic ring.
In their press release issued on the day of Zahra’s arraignment, the directors of Where’s Everybody? said the investigator’s services were being stopped pending the conclusion of legal procedures.
This was not the first time that Zahra’s private investigations were questioned since he launched Professional Private Investigation Agency in the early nineties. In 1995 he was revealed to have sent nothing less than Italy’s mani pulite prosecutions haywire, when he sent false information to the Italian magazine Panorama.
The information, documenting the offshore interests of Massimo Bassi’s Sapri Broker in Malta, was strewn with money laundering transactions reaching up to Hong Kong. Rome Magistrate Gianfranco Mantelli took up the information, only to realise six months later that Zahra had misled the entire investigation.
Archbishop Guzeppi Mercieca
It was, admittedly, an uneventful year for the Gozitan monsignor, except for the fact that the Pope left him leading the Maltese flock for yet another year despite his resignation in November a year ago, when he turned 75.
True, he did have his typical squabbles with priests in his diocese who blatantly disregard him, namely Fr Colin Apap (who endorsed Labour candidate Joseph Muscat in the European Parliament election) and Fr Joe Borg (who ignored the Curia and remained Chairman of the PBS Editorial Board).
Last May he also told the Prime Minister that “solidarity is like skimmed milk” in one of his obscure metaphorical statements. Without Christian values, solidarity would be like “beaten egg-white which turns into snow,” he had said, possibly meaning that it would degenerate.
But compared to last year when he had to deal with allegations of a child abuse scandal in a Church institution and his widely slammed declarations about the domestic role of women, this was a peaceful year indeed for the Maltese Church leader.
The successor of Mgr Mikiel Gonzi has been archbishop since 1976, when political controversies between the Church and the Malta Labour Party were to leave a legacy that conditions a great part of Maltese society to this day.
Speculation about his possible successor is still rife but it seems the Vatican is keen on retaining him in office for longer than expected.
John Dalli
After 10 years holding the country’s financial purse in his hands, a brief stint as foreign minister and surviving countless allegations of corruption made by the Labour Party, it had to be an Iranian connection that saw John Dalli fall from grace.
He now sits on the backbenches watching Lawrence Gonzi trying to make ends meet in an economic climate that has more dark clouds hanging over it than a wintry day in Britain.
From steering the gradual opening of the economy to the introduction of VAT, and the radical income tax reform to the failed promises to control the deficit, Dalli’s political life is one rollercoaster.
Dalli was hoping for an important leap forward when he contested the PN’s leadership but 2004 was more of a leap in the dark. Dalli underestimated the strength of the Party machinery, which backed Lawrence Gonzi throughout. The Qormi politician suffered a crushing result in round one prompting him to concede defeat.
There were no 1970-style compromises and with winner taking all, Dalli was not offered the deputy leader post.
That over, Dalli’s political career went into a nose dive temporarily taking flight at the foreign ministry in Merchant Street only to crash land at the Freeport soon after.
Insinuations and allegations that he used ministerial influence to broker a deal between a family-run company and the Iranian Shipping Agency which was to start operating from the Freeport were making the rounds. Initially dismissed as another Labour Party ‘invention’ the allegations grew more serious by the day until they were uncharacteristically also picked up by The Times.
The second bombshell came in the form of a story that appeared in The Times about the foreign ministry purchasing airline tickets from a company that had links to Dalli’s acquaintances.
With Gonzi reluctant to bite the bullet and ask for his minister’s resignation when the first accusations were fired, Dalli was subjected to mounting internal pressure. The PN’s crushing defeat at the European Parliament elections was the last straw in the whole saga. Dalli’s resignation followed and mysteriously, in accepting it, Gonzi said he found nothing wrong on the Iranian case and was referring the second set of allegations to the Attorney General.
Dalli’s interventions in Parliament have become few and far between, most notable were his statements on Dar Malta and the budget, which displayed a streak of independent mindedness even if couched in a flurry of denigratory words aimed at the Opposition. Dalli knows all too well that as much as this parliamentary term can be his final ride into oblivion, it may also be a temporary exile. He may be down, but he seems not to be completely out.
Tonio Fenech
Undoubtedly this accountant from Birkirkara is a rising star in Gonzi’s otherwise lacklustre Cabinet. In less than a year, the former mayor of Malta’s largest town, Tonio Fenech saw his political career grow in stature.
His appointment as parliamentary secretary at the ministry of finance came at the eleventh hour after both John Dalli and Josef Bonnici turned down Lawrence Gonzi’s offer. It was a surprise move and one of the very few Cabinet appointments that looks promising for Gonzi.
Occupying a quasi ministerial role with extensive influence on how public funds are spent, Fenech has fostered a frank attitude with the media and the social partners.
His contributions at the MCESD are privately praised by union leaders and employers alike. The charm may eventually lose its polish as the novice hardens up to real politik.
Fenech’s real test will not be the budget but the implementation of its measures. The signs are not very encouraging as serious doubts have been raised about Government’s preparedness on at least two issues: the introduction of a 17 per cent surcharge and the removal of public holidays on weekends.
If Government goes ahead and changes industrial law without reaching agreement with the social partners, 2005 is expected to see a wave of industrial unrest sweep the country. It still has to be seen how Fenech will handle the situation and whether he will steer a course clear of industrial turmoil.
Fenech’s name also came to the fore on the Mater Dei issue. He may be commanded for finally capping a problem that has been simmering since 2000 but the solution proved to be a very costly one indeed. But even on this issue the real test will come in two years time when the new hospital is scheduled to open after interminable delays.
With Gonzi publicly declaring he intends holding on to the finance ministry for at least two years, Fenech’s next career move may have to wait even if circumstances may prompt a Cabinet reshuffle earlier than believed.
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