Although he was elected from two districts, his own party leaders feel that Jeffrey Pullicino-Orlando should resign.

“His position is ethically untenable and he should resign,” said party leaders who spoke to this paper last week.

Dr Pullicino-Orlando came to notoriety in the last week of the election campaign when Labour leader Alfred Sant claimed that he had just been given the go-ahead – by a DCC board that then resigned over an unrelated issue – to turn land owned by him in Mistra valley into an open-air discotheque.

Dr Pullicino-Orlando spent the better part of two days running after Dr Sant to confront him and even gate-crashed a Broadcasting Authority press conference, thanks to being accepted by the PN as a

“journalist”.

He first said he knew nothing about the application but then successive revelations by Labour showed that he did know what was going on and that he himself had signed some legal papers.

Dr Gonzi has ordered an investigation into how the permit was issued and last week he ruled out making Dr Pullicino-Orlando a minister, pending the outcome of the investigation.

But what irks the party leaders was the fact that

Dr Pullicino-Orlando gave incorrect information to his own prime minister and party leader, when not having the right information could be – and, as it turned out, was – very damaging in the hot days of the pre-election debates.

Still unconfirmed rumours say that when Dr Gonzi came out of the last day debate with Dr Sant, he sent for Dr Pullicino-Orlando and told him that if the PN lost the election, the blame was his. At which, also reportedly, Dr Pullicino Orlando became ill.