Government Sounding More And More Unhinged Says Together Gibraltar
Together Gibraltar have issued a statement expressing concerns that the Government are "sounding more and more unhinged, and their actions are becoming more reckless and authoritarian."
A statement from Together Gibraltar follows below:
TG leader Marlene Hassan Nahon in a recent public statement expressed her concern that Fabian Picardo might be unraveling under the pressure of the circumstances caused by the Covid pandemic and his Administration’s mismanagement. As time goes by, Mr Picardo and his party are sounding more and more unhinged, and their actions are becoming more reckless and authoritarian. The reality that this Government might be losing control has officially become a real concern to the people of Gibraltar.
We have watched incredulously as our Chief Minister absolved himself of any responsibility for last Friday’s total blackout and decided to throw Gibelec - and its workers - under a bus. In response to this display of indecency and lack of leadership from our Chief Minister, a GibElec worker decided to express his opinion on social media, dissenting from the CM’s cowardly narrative. Gibraltarians have grown accustomed to their Governments (both the GSD AND the GSLP have engaged in this kind of behaviour) gagging and limiting the freedom of speech of civil servants, but this time Government have gone a step further and decided to suspended the worker. This is an extremely worrying development in a Gibraltar where freedom of speech is becoming a luxury awarded only to sycophants and those in the circles of power.
Furthermore we are seeing issues of bad governance, such as constant conflicts of interest, slowly emerge to the surface. Another very recent example of this is the tweet posted by the twitter account of the law firm Hassans congratulating the team advising the TNG group (that included special mention to Justine Picardo, the Chief Minister’s wife and Gemma Vasquez, member of the GSLP executive) who had signed a deal with Fabian Picardo’s (Partner of Hassans) Government worth 330 million pounds.
Instead of having been forthcoming about these conflicts of interest (as is deemed good praxis by all corruption watchdogs), this administration remained silent. To make matters worse, minutes after publishing said tweet, Hassans erased and republished an edited version without the names of Mrs. Picardo and Mrs. Vasquez. This is tantamount to an admission of guilt that something improper has happened, and raises questions about this deal and others.
In addition to this, the CM’s responses to Marlene Hassan’s criticisms have become increasingly histrionic and venomous over the last months. Only a few days ago, the CM accused the TG leader of hypocrisy when she criticised existing conflicts of interest on the St Mary’s new school, stating that she was “eponymously” linked to a law firm her father left over 30 years ago. The new episode of this delirious saga is to now link the TG leader with the actions of the AACR, a party that disbanded when she was 11 years old.
These outrageous accusations are usually coupled with the CM and his acolytes, in typical playground-bully style, accusing the TG leader of not being up to the role of leading Gibraltar and that “the problem she has is that she knows it, her party knows it and the public know it”.
The only thing that is becoming increasingly clear for the Gibraltarian electorate is that 10 years into his tenure, Fabian Picardo is becoming dangerously out of touch with reality, and is showing no signs of remorse.
