I would just like to put this out there, even if it does not spark a discussion. If just a few people learn about what's currently happening here, then that's good enough for me.
Malta is currently undergoing one of the biggest political scandals in European history.
For the uninitiated, 2 years ago, Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated. She was the only major investigative journalist in Malta, and in the months leading to her assassination, she was uncovering a lot of corruption within our island's government. Amongst other things, she revealed that our prime minister, as well as his chief of staff and other ministers, all had companies set up in Panama for tax evasion. Two years have passed and up to a few days ago those people were still in power, with not much progress made on the investigation of her murder.
However, these past 10 days have been like a fever dream for this country. People with ties to her murder one by one got caught and were quick spill the details and rat out other suspects in return for presidential pardons. Not long after, the prime minister's chief of staff, Keith Schembri, resigned from his position, only to be arrested the following day on suspect of being the mastermind behind Daphne's assassination. On the same day of his arrest, one of the ministers (Konrad Mizzi) related to the Panama Papers scandal resigned from his position. Another minister, Chris Cardona also 'suspended himself' until investigations regarding the murder concluded.
At the time I'm writing this, our prime minster, Joseph Muscat, has maintained his position. Despite the fact that, even if Muscat had no involvement in Daphne's murder, there isn't a shadow of a doubt that he was aware of everything going on. Those were his right-hand men who resigned amidst all this unfolding. That was his chief of staff who got arrested and is suspected of being the mastermind behind Daphne's murder.
Unfortunately, the situation seems to be such that the ball is always in our prime minister's court. He is involved in the investigation of Daphne's murder, despite those being his ex-colleagues and close friends suspected in the case and despite the fact that the general public sees him as a suspect as well. He is also calling the shots on who gets their presidential pardons and who doesn't. To top it all off, not more than 2 hours ago as of writing this post, Keith Schembri was released from custody. This is a mere two days after he was arrested for being the suspected mastermind behind Daphne's assassination.
Malta has reached an all-time high in terms of mass hysteria and scepticism. There are mass protests taking place in the capital city and in front of parliament everyday now. Today, people actually went back to form a second protest after the news got out that Keith Schembri was released from custody. It is unquestionable at this point - our prime minister and his associates were willingly involved in the planned assassination of the one person who could have ripped them out of government with the touch of a button. I can only hope that it is only a matter of time before our prime minister resigns and our government collapses.
For those who want to do more research about the situation, look up about Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder. I've linked a blogpost by her son, which offers a good, although emotionally charged, rundown of the events currently going on. I still implore those interested to do more research.
If you've read this far, thank you for your attention. Again, I don't really anticipate much of a discussion will bloom out of this post, but I suppose there's no harm in spreading word of what's happening here.