Opinion: Helena’s credibility

Patrick Dalli, husband of Malta’s EU Commissioner Helena, is on the warpath. Brandishing looney conspiracy theories, Patrick is roping in his whole family to turn on Labour and its officials.

As the whole mortifying comedy is played out in public, the entire nation cringes.

“Soon you will know about the manoeuvres in the appointment of the President by two high-ranking Labour officials to harm Helena’s credibility… It was a fascist attack on a woman who dedicated her life to the Labour Party and the Maltese people,” he said.

What? A fascist attack?

There was no stopping Patrick.  He was on the rampage.  He accused journalists of “lying again” following reports that Helena Dalli was lobbying to remain EU commissioner for a second term.

Helena used her husband’s tactics. Resorting to Facebook, she categorically denied reports. “I will never stoop to such base levels.  That being said, there is a limit to everything, and you cannot always allow deception to go unchallenged,” she wrote.

Helena Dalli is an EU Commissioner.  She embarrasses the whole nation with her sheer pettiness. Her husband’s hysterical comments only make things worse for her.

He accused two high-ranking Labour officials of harming “Helena’s credibility”. She hardly needed any help destroying her credibility; if she needed any, her husband provided it in abundance.

The two of them issued cryptic messages. If you’re going to make accusations, just come out with it.  Who are the two senior Labour officials discrediting Helena? Who is behind the deception (qerq) Helena is talking about?

“I have the necessary experience of a life in politics to know where such baseless reports originate and what their objective is,” she said on social media.

If she knows who’s behind the fake reports, why isn’t she telling us?  Dalli claims she knows somebody is lying about her, somebody is trying to deceive the nation, but she’s coy about revealing who.

She claims she always worked in the country’s interest.  The country’s interest is knowing the truth. Instead, she chooses to protect Labour by withholding that truth.

Now she’s upset because the police haven’t found out who left a threatening message at her home. She’s livid because it’s been over a week, and the police haven’t contacted her. Welcome to Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa’s force.

Helena’s son, Luke, joined the family drama.  He announced that he was quitting after 14 years of hosting shows on Labour’s media outlets.

He left no doubt who was pushing him to make his move. “I reached my decision after consultation with the people I love most in my life,” he said.

“The decision was difficult, but it had to be made, and it had to be made now,” Luke added. He made that decision after “several events that happened in the past years, months and weeks”.

Like his parents, Luke kept us guessing what those “events” could be.  Then he changed his tune – he just needed “more time with the family”.

Patrick Dalli rushed back to social media to post: “The love and respect for family comes before all else.  Well done, Luke”.

What an unedifying spectacle. What an embarrassment for the entire country.  If there were any doubt about Helena Dalli’s unfitness for office her petulant posts and her husband’s and son’s tantrums definitely dispelled them.

Their antics don’t just make them a laughing stock – they shame the whole country. And not for the first time, either.

Patrick Dalli yelled “mafia” at the Chief Justice in a packed court when a decision didn’t go his way. “You should be ashamed of yourself, mafia, mafia, corruption, free masonry, Opus Dei,” he shouted.

Anybody else would have been held in contempt of court, jailed, or fined.  But Patrick is the EU Commissioner’s husband.  He was just let off without even a reprimand.

When his wife Helena was still minister in Joseph Muscat’s Cabinet, the State purchased a painting of a blond nude that was the work of Helena’s husband.  The state paid him €15,000 for it.

When then-PN MP Therese Commodini Cachia asked in parliament how the minister’s husband had been chosen and who valued Patrick’s work, he went on the attack.  “The price of my art is established by myself, and nobody has the right to value my work.”

The Dallis’ shenanigans prove one thing – Robert Abela was right not to nominate her for President.  He couldn’t possibly risk it with a husband like Patrick.

If she were made President, Patrick might get his wife to replace the Gobelins tapestries or Perez d’Aleccio’s frescoes at the Grandmaster’s Palace with his mediocre nudes. You’d never know whether he’d make a scene at some state dinner yelling “fascist”, “mafia”, “Opus Dei” at some head of state.