Business • January 11 2004

Jimmy Magro’s Political Career: an abject failure

Edward Torpiano
Floriana

Kindly allow me to refer to the news item titled, ‘Jimmy for Europe’ (MaltaToday, December 21, 2003).
Should one take an objective view of Jimmy Magro’s political career, or what might be left of it, one could come to the conclusion that, as a politician, Jimmy Magro failed in what he set out to achieve.
In his - those were the days - heyday as Secretary General of the Malta Labour Party, when he used to spout venom against anything Nationalist, he had protested to the Broadcasting Authority about one of my radio commentaries, as guest speaker on Radio Live FM then situated at number 70, Capuchins’ street, Floriana.
The subject was Michele Sindona’s mysterious death and his, (Sindona’s), P2 Masonic Lodge connections. Something I had mentioned must have irked the Secretary General even though, to this day, I do not know what this might have been.
I distinctly remember being dismayed that the then Malta Labour Party Secretary General did not have the decency to inform me that he had protested about my radio comments to the Broadcasting Authority.
Neither did the Broadcasting Authority inform me about the protest, evidently deeming Jimmy Magro’s arguments to have been immature and puerile. I only became aware of what had happened because a then Radio Live FM journalist informed me about what had taken place behind my back. I was then no longer invited as guest commentator by this station but, after some time, I ended up conducting two different radio programmes called ‘Kummenti’ and ‘Kelma bejn Tnejn’ respectively on another radio station called ‘Deejays Radio,’ which radio station always accepted my comments without any form of censorship whatsoever. That’s democracy for you, according to Jimmy Magro!
Unfortunately enough for the Malta Labour Party, it had placed unlimited confidence in an incompetent puffed-up, politician, this being a person who, like Don Quixote before him, gleefully led his ‘army’ into electoral battles/campaigns it was bound to lose, - as it, eventually, nearly always did.
Instead of having had the decency to admit or to acknowledge this, as he and his mentor Alfred Sant should have done, Magro resigned from the party post of Secretary General and followed this up by contesting for a chair in the Malta Labour Party national executive - he was not elected. Yet again, Magro followed this by contesting for acceptance as one of the Malta Labour Party’s European Parliament candidates - where, yet again, he was not elected in spite of have ‘hauled’ his wife to sit by his side during one of his press conferences.
Indeed, they seemed to be rather a pitiable couple, Jimmy Magro was forced to swallow, and not only to eat, humble pie by the same Malta Labour Party delegates which delegates he always used to excuse, irrespective of the arguments involved.
In the item titled, ‘Jimmy for Europe’ (MaltaToday, December 21, 2003) readers could learn that this political non-entity, (now succeeded by a general-secretary well known for his antics), has sat for an examination in order to become a European Union functionary. One wonders why during the April 12, 2003 General Election campaigning to the House of Representatives, European Union membership was, always according to Jimmy Magro, detrimental to the people of Malta and Gozo? And now it might well end up by being beneficial to Magro himself.
Could this be because Jimmy Magro despises the people of Malta and Gozo so much that he does not want them to enjoy the benefits, which he hopes to attain for himself from European Union membership?