Joe Etienne Abela is a surgeon who joined politics to ingratiate with the Labour leader come what may in order to extend his personal ambitions. Just another narcissist who supported Robert Abela’s resistance to a public inquiry on Jean-Paul Sofia’s death during the heated cabinet discussions about the matter. He is Minister for Active Aging; a title that is self-evidently indicative of an iced bun for a politician given that this shouldn’t be a ministry at all, but rather a matter that is delegated to a social ministry.
Joe Etienne Abela was given his ministerial post because he is part of the loyal faction to Robert Abela, but being a newcomer and with no experience at all in public or private administration, he couldn’t be given a relevant ministry. In exchange for his support of Robert Abela, he got an iced bun.
Now, Robert Abela intends to promote Joe Etienne Abela to the post of Health Minister to oust his critic from the cabinet, Deputy-Prime Minister and Health Minister Chris Fearne. This is the third person Robert Abela is trying to push as Health Minister instead of Fearne. The first person that Robert Abela asked to replace Fearne was Charmaine Gauci during the middle of the Covid Pandemic. Robert Abela was flustered with Fearne’s consistent demands to keep restrictions when the pandemic was at its height and Robert Abela opposed this. Charmaine Gauci declined Robert’s proposal and this was because Chris Fearne had preempted this situation already by giving Charmaine Gauci a substantial salary increase (she has a contract equivalent to Carmen Ciantar).
The second time Robert Abela tried to replace Chris Fearne as Health Minister was after he won the general election of last year. Robert Abela asked a previous cabinet minister to take the role of Health Minister instead of Chris Fearne and this proposal was rejected outright. Robert Abela told this person to forget about it and proceeded to give them another ministry.
Now, Robert Abela wants Joe Etienne Abela to become Health Minister. Robert has been planning a cabinet reshuffle to consolidate his power over the cabinet given that he has been receiving strong criticism from the Minister for Finances and Chris Fearne, apart from being openly challenged in his leadership role by Miriam Dalli. However, and so far, Robert Abela couldn’t pull off his intended cabinet reshuffle.
It would be disastrous for labour with the up-coming MEP elections less than a year away, for RA to undertake a cabinet reshuffle now that is unless his hand is forced due to some unexpected revelation that blows the lid away or a jockeyed resignation. It is also obvious that RA cannot move against the likes of Clayton Bartolo, Silvio Schembri and Clyde Caruana. Meanwhile Chris Fearne stills holds a lot of sway with traditional party diehards who are intensely disillusioned with the current bunch of immature nitwits forming part of Labour’s cabinet. Labour is bleeding and now is the time to try and close ranks even though begrudgingly. As for Miriam Dalli’s imaginary hopes of becoming Labour’s new leader. She does not and will never have JM’s backing. Dream on or rather have a nightmare.