Keith Schembri was finally going to get his day in court and the nation was on the edge of their seats. An ominous post the evening before gave some indication for what was to come. The pressure was building up in the Daphne Caruana Galizia case with the Montenegro windfarm allegations and Vitals scandal gaining momentum.

But all Schembri needed to do was deflect attention by pointing a finger at PN Leader Adrian Delia to leave a party that was set to benefit in turmoil.

Uncertainty within the party will continue for at least another few weeks, but it’s made one thing clear:

Prime Minister Robert Abela and the Labour Party have managed to plough through the worst political crisis Malta has ever seen to emerge seemingly stronger than ever.

Make no mistake about it. Abela was directly involved in disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s cabinet as were the many ministers and junior ministers who join Abela today.

However, many believed that the fallout from major corruption allegations and links to a potential cover-up in the murder of a journalist would send the Labour Party on a downward spiral.

Remember, Abela was never seen as an agent of change during the leadership election. By his own admission, he was the continuity candidate, and many feared that any reform would simply be superficial.

Fast forward six months and there’s a glimmer of hope.

Abela has expelled controversial figures like Konrad Mizzi and Chris Cardona from the government. He has also swiftly replaced former Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar and former Economic Crimes Unit Head (but still Assistant Commissioner) Ian Abdilla after years of inaction of corruption and money laundering allegations.

Judicial reforms are also being introduced, and Abela has acted when cabinet members have faced major allegations of inappropriate behaviour, like when he dumped former Gozo Minister Justyne Caruana from the cabinet just five days into her tenure.

Meanwhile, areas like planning and the environment are finally getting the importance they deserve with people like Aaron Farrugia at the helm.

We will have to wait and see whether these changes will have any follow-through and lead to a Malta we all want. Concrete action, indictments, and arrests – even just interrogations would be an improvement.

Abela did not have the support of his MPs and still has work to do to reach the unbridled loyalty Muscat enjoyed. However, he took a government and party on the crux of exploding and steadied the ship.

He did pander to his support base through the leadership election and sometimes still does so. But, politics can be a difficult balancing act. Assuming he can simply change the nation in three days is impossible.

For a bulk of Labour Party supporters, Muscat was a messiah, Mizzi was a genius, and Cardona was innovative, but Abela’s been able to shut them out of the corridors of power without taking any dent to his popularity or causing a rift in his support base.

Admittedly, Abela is allowing Muscat a graceful exit from parliament and bringing him on for late-night meetings on the economy does show that Muscat is still untouchable.

Abela has even shown a determination to scrutinise controversial deals made under Muscat’s administration. He immediately went on the offensive in the Vitals Global Healthcare/Steward Healthcare hospitals deal.

It was threatening to grind to screeching halt before the pandemic. However, uncovering a damning missing MoU and passing it on to the National Audit Office that could indicate collusion in the deal could give Abela the upper hand and even scrap the deal with minimal losses.

And herein lies the point. Adrian Delia made the hospitals deals one of his priorities throughout the last three years, taking it to successful legal battles in the court. It could have been yet another weapon in the PN’s arsenal to finally start closing a seven-year 35,000 voter gap.

But here we are talking about Delia while the government (and many Ministers still linked to controversial allegations) ride on yet another wave.

The political crisis and its fallout could have been the PN’s shining moment when it’s now starting to look more like a Trojan horse. Despite all the scandals and the turmoil the country has been through, the PN has somehow come out weaker.

And all it took was a simple finger point from Keith Schembri to show how impotent and uncredible the PN has become under Delia’s stewardship.

And what’s to say this is not going to happen every single time a fresh allegation comes up, especially with deals like Electrogas, an Enemalta purchase of a Montenegrin wind farm, the Panama Papers, and so much more under the microscope.

Ultimately, continued allegations against Delia mean divisions have never been healed ever. And while it may be easy to point the finger at dissenting MPs for never giving Delia a chance – loyalty and faith is not a right, it’s earned.

The accusations aren’t even Delia’s main problem, it’s the fact that he’s massively unpopular among the electorate three years into his tenure, performing abysmally in polls. Even his potential replacement, Therese Comodini Cachia, has reached the same trust rating just weeks into announcing her ambitions for the role.

However, it should be clear to most that the PN’s problems are far greater than Delia. Both former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and former Leader Simon Busuttil lost by record margins – a lack of vision and willingness to radically transform is not going to change with the magic wand of a new leader.

Delia’s successor, whether they come in a few weeks or after his inevitable abysmal performance in the next general election, needs to finally start learning from past mistakes and bring in new ideas to start convincing people that there could be a viable alternative to the Labour Party.

Abela might be performing well – but we must never forget that every cabinet member and MP stood idly by while a few men came together to rob taxpayers blindly. A viable opposition is what the country needs.

Without one, Abela’s growing popularity and authority could leave Malta in the grips of a one-party state with no way out.

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