His record hassles with government bureaucracy suggests none of the parties love him. Now Anglu Xuereb has one all of his own

On their website, Azzjoni Nazzjonali now fashion themselves as “the voice of the silent majority”, a lofty claim which befits the incredulously high expectations of Dr Josie Muscat, the former Nationalist MP who will face his old party in the general elections. For the second consecutive time, Josie Muscat’s party has failed to leave a mark in MaltaToday surveys, with none of the 300 respondents participating opting for the new far right party. After their dismal inception which attracted just 200 participants, AN seem to have encountered a deafening silence. Their first mass activity, in the time-honoured ‘familjafest’ tradition, was held in Birzebbugia, home of the infamous Bus 13 incident. Few people turned up to savour Azzjoni Nazzjonali’s own brand of family fun, which recruited the likes of daft balladeers Chiara and Fabrizio Faniello, and the hackneyed Freddie Portelli to entertain the ‘silent majority’. As of today, Azzjoni Nazzjonali are starting their own political meetings inside their party headquarters in Gzira, where they can be sure to rustle up enough members for a respectably packed boardroom meeting. Anglu Xuereb, the construction magnate and hotelier who unexpectedly became deputy leader of the anti-immigration party, says the campaign has only just started for AN. “We have only just started our campaign. I am the first to have launched my campaign. The Birzebbugia rally was attended by some 200 people. Now when the major parties hold their political meetings in some locality, how many people would they have? Maybe ten? Today, people are annoyed with too much politics, with seeing the TV and media dominated by one party or the other.” This is a statement which captures both contradictory sides of the ‘new’ and ‘old’ in a party like Azzjoni Nazzjonali. Eager to break away from the dominance of the established parties, they brand politics as a burdensome distraction on an unsuspecting public, which has to endure having to hear Sunday sermons from the political parties. At the same time, they are now part of the same game they would deride. And to this, Anglu Xuereb says: “Unfortunately yes, because if you don’t hold these meetings, you miss out. If we are elected as a third party, things will change.” ‘If elected’ is not just a hypothetical argument for Xuereb. The party is convinced it will manage to clinch a seat in parliament, underlined by the magnate’s statement that AN is “there to win”. “We’re there to win. We’re confident of getting a seat. Our proposals are radical and just and they make a lot of sense. We’re ready to work with other political parties, and my past, including that of Josie’s, is a guarantee of the future. We’re both men of success in the business and political world.” Success is endemic to the Xuereb personality. Certainly, there is no shortage of pride. He never fails to mention that he is, rightly enough, the local boy done good, a man starting from modest beginnings, his first venture being a Lm200 tender for the restoration of a pavement, which took him to becoming one of Malta’s foremost entrepreneurs. He is certainly no darling to the environmental lobby, which fought tooth and nail against his proposal to have the Verdala environs at Tal-Virtù in Rabat turned into a golf course the size of Sliema. And yet Anglu Xuereb confidently states that he is “for development, sustainable development, and the environment”, saying he can understand the balance that must be kept between the construction industry which “gave Malta its economy” and the environment. Equally, one assumes there is no shortage of prejudice either, to have been drawn into the hands of people like Josie Muscat and Philip Beattie, the latter having organised mass rallies against immigrants. “I am a patriot. This has been my lifelong attribute. And there’s something else I have – it’s vision. I have the new ideas, and I can improve upon what I see abroad. I see golden opportunities here being lost for our country. I see countries leaping ahead of us, while our progress has been too slow. We are lagging behind other countries. I feel something has to be done. I have given my contribution on a political level already as Naxxar mayor – my six-year record speaks for itself. “I think I am credible enough for people to trust me. I’ve been successful in my career and in local government. I think my past is a guarantee for the future. I haven’t the slightest doubt about my capacity. I want to give something back to my country. Certainly, it doesn’t pass through anybody’s mind to compromise their career through politics. I will lose out on this, certainly. I will resign as the Group’s chairman if ever I am elected… that’s how it should be and I’m willing to do it.” But how will he be able to guarantee that he can keep this balance, when his interests span across almost the entire construction industry and also tourism. “I assure you. If somebody accuses us of having taken a contract by virtue of our position, I would order an investigation. It’s a question of honesty. I am ready to bite the bullet. My business will suffer the most, because we won’t even tender for certain contracts, because it would be a conflict of interest.” So why a new party? Why not the established parties? “My life has always been challenges. I am a person of vision, innovation and challenges. If somebody else has done something already, I’m not interested. And when something is challenging, I just go for it. It’s hard to contest independently. Josie has the good things, his way of passing on the message, differently to the way I communicate mine. His intentions for the country are very good – a loyal patriot, who insists on the importance of sovereignty. Josie tends to be very straight – he doesn’t mince his words. He knows what he’s talking about, and he’s a seasoned politician who is well experienced at political and private business level. And sometimes the media does not report on what he wants to communicate.” He was certainly aware of what he said about foreigners marrying Maltese, resettling migrants after a month, discipline, law and order, when your party was unveiled. His comments weren’t off the cuff. “Let me tell you where he was misquoted. Immigration. He wasn’t saying we wanted them out of the country, or that we wouldn’t let them land in Malta. These people would have passed through a traumatic experience to arrive to Malta. We need to go to Brussels and fight our battle there, all political parties. The EU is not helping us enough. We want an arrangement to resettle migrants elsewhere after a month of sojourn.” But Xuereb doesn’t realise that the confines of international law won’t allow any government to reject asylum to a person who applies for protection until his case is reviewed. In short, resettling asylum seekers after a month would be tantamount to removing the right to asylum in the first place – think of it as removing Anglu Xuereb’s right to apply for a permit to have a golf course. But Xuereb counters. “We are the country that is suffering the most. We are the smallest country and we are receiving more migrants percentage-wise than other countries. We are part of the Community, and many illegal immigrants don’t want to come to Malta but move on to Europe. We are Europe’s front, and Europe must support us by finding an alternative place for these migrants.” You said the building industry requires foreign labour, and that the ETC process to get more workers had to be more streamlined. You yourself employ foreign workers and Africans… “No, the building industry needs skilled labourers, not people who can’t even sweep a floor. We have managed to get foreigners from Yugoslavia, Pakistan and India, but permits for skilled labour are still difficult to obtain. On the other hand, illegal immigrants are given sojourn here, and given the status of… ‘protected illegal immigrants’… we are paying them food, the infrastructure, we don’t know what tax they pay. These people are better off than the Maltese…” I challenge him to prove such a spurious comment. “…the industry needs people with skills, not illegal immigrants. We don’t get anything beneficial out of them. I tell you something the media should talk about – 90% of these people are trafficked by criminal organisations. You don’t see any fuel on the boats they arrive in… they have obviously been put on these boats by someone else. A number of them are dressed smart, some of them are carrying mobiles… they are not coming from the poverty we think they have.” How do you reconcile your party’s stance on immigration with the fact that you have employed African workers on your sites as well… “All official, of course. But there’s no conflict. As a contractor I need people. There are no Maltese workers. But they have to be trained. The problem is that we have many unemployable, Maltese people.” So isn’t migrant labour an answer to the shortfall? “They have to be trained, and these migrants aren’t. You even have to teach them to sweep. I know what I am saying. Apart from the vindictive nature – they are dangerous, and they say obscenities about Malta, they scratch walls… and I can get you other witnesses, such as the people who work with them. And they don’t work, they go slow. You have to push them. But there are also other coloured people who are trained, and who can even teach the Maltese… what irritates me is that the migrants we have are unskilled.” Your party emphasises “seriousness” and law and order. Wasn’t it embarrassing for you to open a hotel which was neither licensed by the MTA nor by MEPA…? “We not only emphasise seriousness but also justice. The Palace hotel incident was purely bureaucratic. The problem was because the hotel’s plans had been filed as an extension to the [neighbouring] Victoria Hotel. First it took four years to get a permit for the extension. When later I had an international company to manage the hotel, we had to submit plans for a totally independent hotel. The permit took three years to process. We only got it recently, and when the MTA pointed out to us the plans had been an ‘extension to the Victoria Hotel’ so they couldn’t issue a licence. This was just a bureaucratic problem. “It didn’t even pass through my mind that this could have been a problem. This was an architect’s mistake, when he made changes to the plan without changing the title. If the plans had been called ‘Palace Hotel’, nothing like this would have happened.” I ask him whether he feels comfortable with people like Philip Beattie and Paul Salomone, the latter facing charges of incitement to racial hatred. “Every person has their good and bad qualities. Everyone has made their mistakes. We can’t use the mistakes of yesteryear to judge a person. It’s a question of policy in our party – the members must respect our policy.” Wasn’t he lending a respectable face for members of AN who harbour racist sentiments? “That’s what the people will have to judge for themselves when the election comes. Everyone has their good and bad qualities.” When we turn to the coming general elections, Xuereb says he thinks Lawrence Gonzi has little chance of being elected again. “He’s an honest guy but unfortunately the ministers around him are two decades older than him." Then he starts sketching on a piece of paper - two large trees and a sapling in between. "Gonzi is like a small tree in between the bigger trees, overshadowing him, their roots setting in. He tries to cover up their corruption. Honesty is not enough to manage – you need leadership.” And leadership would be something Azzjoni Nazzjonali can bring to the electorate? “There are natural reasons why Gonzi cannot make it. People get annoyed after so many years in power. Gonzi didn’t even make a reshuffle.” He says he knows that entering politics will affect business. Permits will take longer to be processed, especially since he claims he has never had any permit take shorter than three years to be issued. “Permits related to the Verdala development are still pending, 13 years later. I sold the Duke of Edinburgh hotel in Gozo after not being awarded a permit for 11 years – the buyer got a full development permit within a month, for apartments not for a hotel as I had intended. Fine. Maybe I’m no blue-eyed boy (forsi m’ghandix nemex f’wicci).” Do you feel you have been scorned by both parties? “Maybe. Because I’m sincere. I’m honest, and maybe that’s one of the reasons.” But you have financed both parties… “Small amounts. Lm1,000 in a year, and maybe not every year. I wouldn’t know the global amount but they were small amounts, and all acknowledged with receipts. They would ask me to contribute, mainly people close to the party. I believe political parties need support. Campaigns need money to have politicians represent people, as long as it is within the laws and regulations… “But I haven’t built any party headquarters or given anything in kind,” he chuckles, referring to MaltaToday revelations of contractors who finance political parties. “Even if Alternattiva Demokratika had to come for a donation, I would have given them something. All parties are working for the good of the country.” Didn’t he expect any form of return for his donations? He spent hundreds of thousands in preparing reports and studies for the golf course at Verdala which was then refused by the planning authority. Didn’t he expect some more favourable consideration… “It doesn’t even pass through my mind. That would be bribery. I took no project without the permits taking less than four years to be issued. There are many projects I didn’t get – the Manoel Island and Tigné brief s for example. The Tigné brief was clear – only four storeys high. Today the winners have 14 storeys, certainly a massive difference between what was tendered.” Xuereb says he has never, in 20 years, taken a “big” government contract for roads. “In 20 years I never got a significant roads contract. It’s not the end of the world that we don’t get a contract. But we only ever got small contracts, and recently – housing apartments. But I never got big government contracts. I don’t even apply for tenders any longer… but that’s no reason for entering politics.” I put it to him that he was using the political bandwagon as a vanity vehicle to promote his projects, but he refutes the connotation. “I don’t include my business interests in politics. I’m not entering politics because I didn’t get development briefs or a golf course permit. That’s history. There have been many proposals I made as a private individual, and which if elected to government, I will do my utmost that these projects are carried out. Because they make a lot of sense.” The contradiction at hand is glaring. He mentions the radical changes he intends bringing to public transport, the masterplan for Valletta Gate, in which he proposed a park and ride system, linking Sliema and Marsamxett, rebuilding the Opera House, introducing a monorail system. “All these proposals made sense but remained on the shelf.”