Malta’s candidate for the pan-European party Libertas was the unwitting butt of a practical joke while attending an EU-funded meeting in Sweden on adult education this week.
According to a blog post by British comedian Ben Kersley, he came to the conference dressed as a hack journalist, to ask ridiculous questions to the delegates present – such as ‘why were they planning to teach computer skills to fish’ – noting that on the whole, everyone played along.
But Mary Gauci turned out to be an exception, as Kersley comments on his blog:
“This Maltese politico was charismatic and I’m sure highly intelligent, but failed to cotton on the fact that I was not really writing about the conference. She felt it important to try and electioneer to me, a comedian in Sweden, to try and win votes for a European election in Malta!
“She was also rather gullible. I can only thank her as she became the centre of the performance and drew laughter from the other delegates. Our ‘double act’ went like this:
“Where are you from? – Malta.
“Which country is that in? – It’s an independent country!
“Is it? I’ve never heard of it. What country does it border with? – It’s an island!
“Oh. It’s in Ireland… Do you speak Irish then?”
Kersely said he took a group picture of the delegates and asked the ones “from the more important countries to stand at the front. Laughter. Irony…. needless to say, the MEP candidate for Malta stood right in the middle at the front with a pose that said ‘democracy, transparency, accountability’.”
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