Yesterday, it was Daphne’s five-year anniversary since she was murdered. Prime Minister Robert Abela chose, yet again not to commemorate her. He has yet to visit her memorial where she was murdered in Bidnija. Instead of commemorating her, he held a partisan meeting at the Labour club of Żebbuġ to a crowd of fewer than 80 people with half of them consisting of MPs, committee members and party activists.
I don’t remember Labour being ever so desperate to bring out a crowd for the leader’s Sunday sermons. Joseph Muscat’s meetings used to be packed with people with more waiting outside just to greet him.
As always, Robert said the same thing that he says over and over again, every time. His politics is for the people and he is close to the people. Kind of hard to understand what this kind of politics is for the people consists of, but he says that Labour is very good in this field of politics. I suppose, that by politics for the people he means the issuing of energy subsidies and by being close to the people I assume he is referring to the Labour Party’s system of patronage.
By now, his “people’s politics” mantra is getting tiring, yet it is very in synch with Labour’s current slide to totalitarianism. A “people’s politics” can be anything, even destroying the environment so that Joseph Portelli can have his permits. It can also mean the subjugation of state entities to serve the interests of the Labour Party. Or the cover-up of political crimes by criminals who are loved by the people. Totalitarianism doesn’t necessarily happen overnight, either. Many dictators went through a long process of concentrating power before becoming dictators. Similarly, today, the Labour Party concentrates power on its leader in the name of the people.
Yet, there is also another obvious reason, to me, that explains why Robert Abela is so obsessed with “people’s politics.” Robert is, in fact, and indeed very insecure about having people love him and accepting him and has total contempt for anyone who doubts his narcissistically induced self-worth. He alienates people with his sense of grandeur and sense of entitlement but feels offended when is doubted or criticised even to a small degree. He needs the approval of people constantly to feel at ease, otherwise, reality catches up with him and gets overwhelmed with the fact that he is a total idiot and people only respect him for the power and the money he has, but not for who he really is as a man.
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