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Mintoffianism at its best No, guys, I am not going to write about who you expect me to write about. I am not that silly, but if anyone wants any lessons on how to get rid of your Royal Doulton dinner set, please drop me line. I will give you a reference for some quick advice. But what is most sinister is the latest waterfall of incalculable hatred in conjunction with a silent campaign orchestrated by the Office of the Prime Minister to stop Robert Musumeci from running for a by-election. Architect Robert Musumeci has obviously come under scrutiny for his role in obtaining permits at MEPA, and his controversial applications and success rate have not eluded this newspaper. Indeed our newspaper articles have consistently queried his MEPA history – perhaps someone should look at the stories about Victor Scerri and Bahrija – despite the fact that he is one of our opinion writers. This newspaper has not shied away from writing what needs to be written, but I will not be conditioned on what to write, more so from individuals who are seriously in need of help. But that is not the point. The point here is that the request, by a very senior source at OPM, occurred at the same time that Robert Musumeci (and most especially his partner, Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera) came under a scathing and cruel attack from the usual source, protected and abetted by the highest echelons in this administration. Once again, it is clear that Robert Musumeci, a Nationalist mayor in Siggiewi, could stand a chance to be elected in a by-election. Perhaps not, since Philip Micallef, the other contender, seems to have had quite a number of transferable votes from John Dalli’s Qormi base. It would also be interesting here to see what someone like Richard Cachia Caruana has to say about Robert Musumeci. We all know that the Cardinal is a good friend of Carol Aquilina, one of the people who would love to replace Robert. And one of those touted by the Cardinal himself to replace Borg Oliver the PN secretary general. Why would the Office of the Prime Minister - or let us face it, Lawrence Gonzi – not want Musumeci to stand? Why does Musumeci get these messages from Castille? And why is he attacked with a vengeance on the blogs at the very same time? We are after all talking about Castille here – that wonderful edifice peopled by personalities such as Charmaine Gerada and Charles Bonello from the PM’s secretariat: the latter being the brother of the young lawyer John Bonello, the International secretary of the PN who also stands in as legal advisor of Malta Enterprise and as secretary of the Resources Authority (no conflict of interest here, by the way). The question to ask is whether Gonzi’s government has reached the abyss and the pits of the last year of Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s Labour administration in 1987. The big difference is that in 1987, many Labourites believed in KMB, but in 2010 many Nationalists have lost faith in Lawrence Gonzi’s way of doing things and his ability to look the other way. Another front-page story in this newspaper is also about how Louis Galea was asked by the Prime Minister to take up the post of auditor in Brussels and relinquish his post of speaker. It is clearly indicative of what is going on in the Prime Minister’s head. Yet another opponent or dissident or nuisance is exiled. Louis Galea was doing a wonderful job as speaker, and he had no intention of standing for by-election. That in itself was one good reason for Gonzi to be concerned: more so with the recent rulings by Louis Galea that allowed certain Opposition motions to be discussed in Parliament. With Galea out of the way, the next step is to appoint a speaker, and the one name on the cards is Helen D’Amato: who together with Tonio Fenech were instrumental in making wonderful phone calls to councillors before the Gonzi-Dalli leadership and tell people not to vote for John Dalli, because John Dalli was a …. Well, such is life. You can accuse Louis Galea of not being a virgin but compared to Helen D’Amato he is a star, an intellectual, a visionary, a brain, and I would be greatly surprised to see her accept a motion by Opposition leader Joseph Muscat. Well, time has served to teach us a lesson about Gonzi and his acolytes. His only interest is to survive and to accomplish this, they are willing to do anything to erase all form of opposition. See what they are trying to do with MaltaToday: a newspaper embraced and read by a predominantly PN-leaning audience. Robert Musumeci must contest, for his sake and for the sake of party democracy. He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but surely his decision will have a direct bearing on the barometer of democracy within a party that appears to be firmly in a Mintoffian mode and led by a man who has made it his mission to eradicate everything the Nationalist party ever stood for.
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European Elections special editions 01 June 2009 |
Managing editor Saviour Balzan | Tel. ++356 21382741 | Fax: ++356 21385075 | Email