If you want to know whom I am referring to read on. All eyes and ears are focused on who will lead and what changes will be made in the Labour camp rather than the new Cabinet right now.
Although of course, the Prime Minister’s performance in response to all his pre-election promises is going to be closely watched.
His first big challenge came with MEPA’s auditor’s report on the Mistra development. And what a damning report that was.
But more on that later. Labour pundits are really upsetting the apple cart. What they are suggesting is very radical not only for the MLP but the way leaders are elected almost everywhere.
Party delegates swing whoever will lead a party, certainly in the West.
It would be truly progressive and would change the way politics is done if the radicals manage to pull this off. Similar struggles have also been going on within the PN and other political parties abroad.
The grassroots in any party are hardly ever directly involved in the decision-making. It is the small enclave at Party headquarters that lays down the law for the delegates to follow. No wonder Jason Micallef reacted so badly to Dr George Abela’s proposal that the voting process should have a wider representation.
Frankly, I think that Jason is not helping the MLP. He showed arrogance in his dismissal of Dr Abela’s opinion. The latter is highly respected and for the general secretary to outrightly dismiss proposals does not bode at all well. This is the man who in an interview on Sunday said, “We (MLP) became more inclusive, we did not have all the useless feuds we used to have in the not so distant past”. Really Jason?
So why is Evarist Bartolo also calling for the resignations of both deputy leaders and radical changes? “To become the next government, the Labour Party has to be relevant to the majority of the Maltese citizens, in substance and in style. The party must have values and policies that make sense for as many people as possible. We have to become an open and broad party in touch with a wider spectrum of our society. We need new ideas and new people in our fold”, said Mr Bartolo on Sunday.
I often wonder which planet Jason is on. He is either naive or cannot see things clearly and he certainly has grown too big for his boots. Whichever, he is really not up to the post of chief executive, as he puts it.
He screwed up badly before the election when last August he was broadcast on You Tube saying: “I tell you we will also be a government for Labourites and we will carry out justice with Labourites in the first few months”, at a Labour Party event.
In an interview later, he described the Nationalists’ reaction to his controversial speech as cheap propaganda on a “non-issue”.
You wish Jason! It was very much an issue and it was not only the Nationalists who thought that but also the all important swing voters. People might have voted for Labour if they could see that change would really happen and not just have more of the same under a different banner.
With words like “We will be a government for all Maltese and Gozitans, but here we are Labourites among Labourites (qeghdin bejnietna),” Jason blew it.
The message was that outwardly, justice would seem to be done, but within the corridors of power “Labourites qeghdin bejnietna”.
Jason is one of the country’s prima donnas. It is all me, me, me. In the interview with Karl Schembri on Sunday, he told us “I knew what our problems were in 2003, I tried tackling them. I think in 2003 the way our message was relayed was a bit outdated. I feel personally very disappointed, because the country deserved a new beginning. But despite my disappointment I still feel I have a lot to give to the party. I’m still young... Even if I decide to leave, I would be the most irresponsible secretary-general to leave just now.
“I’m the chief executive here. What happens if I leave? You might tell me that when a Pope dies, another one goes in. There would be nobody to organise it (the MLP) if I disappear.”
The post of general secretary has certainly gone to Jason’s head and he is suffering badly from delusions of grandeur. Comparing himself to the Pope indeed!
He told us that he has “worked on, almost exclusively, the party media and Labour’s public image in general” and that there is room for improvement, and sophistication.
“I believe we need to be more sophisticated, in our media, in our public speeches particularly. I was disappointed by a number of speakers,” he said.
But he was coy when asked to name the latter. He obviously does not include himself among the MLP’s unsophisticated public speakers. No wonder that Dr Abela was quoted as saying “Jason is not the party.” Apparently Mr Micallef thinks he is much more than just that.
Dr Abela is contesting the post of MLP leader. He believes that it should not just be the delegates to decide the future of the party but also the paid-up members. He has called for a report to analyse who was responsible for Labour’s third successive election defeat.

Jeffrey’s downfall
Not that it came as a surprise. The crocodile tears did not fool everyone. Although he managed to upstage the rest of his colleagues with his drama queen act and many voters fell for it, the police investigating the Mistra development case have come up with interesting results.
They were told by Government officials and planning board members, who approved the development application, that Pullicino Orlando – one of the Nature Trust Green Media Award winners in 2001/2002 – had urged them to keep an eye on and facilitate the application process.
The MEPA auditor’s report on the Mistra development is not the first of Mr Falzon’s reports pointing out serious failings at MEPA.
But the Mistra scandal, coming out as it did at election time, left no option for Dr Gonzi but to request the investigation. What is unusual is Mepa having to eat humble pie, not that there seems to be much of a change in its attitude. In reply to the report it said that without necessarily sharing all the considerations expressed in the report, it agreed with the conclusions and comments.
I think this is a first that Mepa has officially agreed with the auditor’s conclusions and comments and going as far as saying it would be initiating action to revoke the permit in terms of the Development Planning Act “since its approval constitutes an error on the face of the record which offends against the law.”
But why did it agree if it did not “necessarily” share all the considerations? My guess is because the Prime Minister agreed with the report conclusions and has asked MEPA to initiate the recommendations made. Although, the PM still did not ask for the chairman’s resignation despite the latter having expressed “full confidence in the members of the board” when they submitted their resignation.
The Development Control Commission A members were found “solely responsible for this gross irregularity in the approval of this planning application...
“...The DCC had ample warning of the illegality of its actions. They had been informed over and over again that the application was not acceptable in principle, yet they chose to ignore all these recommendations without even submitting the slightest justification for their decision.”
Further details on the report are included on page 2 and 3, so I shall not reproduce them again. But this report vindicates all previous reports, which had been ignored despite the widely held belief that Mepa has in the past systematically got away with breaking its own rules.

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