Former Marsa mayor and PN executive member Frank Zammit will likely be contesting the local council elections on the PL ticket, which will see the PN losing another diehard, sources told this newspaper.
The diehard in question is a former aide to John Dalli.
Contacted by this newsroom, Mr Zammit was coy, but his answers to our questions seemed to indicate that something was in the pipeline.
Asked to confirm whether he will be crossing over to the Labour Party and contesting the local elections on the PL’s ticket, Mr Zammit replied that “you would know when the time is right”.
Asked if PN secretary-general Chris Said (photo) approached him to return to the party, he declined to comment. Mr Zammit served as an aide to Mr Dalli until his (Dalli’s) resignation from the European Commission in 2012.
Mr Zammit accompanied Mr Dalli practically everywhere and in recent years earned a reputation for his extensive knowledge on the Vatican and his rapport with various figures in the Vatican administration.
If Mr Zammit does cross to the PL, this won’t be the first time a PN former mayor or councillor would have done so. Others who made the shift to the PL include Paul Bugeja, who served as PN mayor of St Paul’s Bay, former PN mayor of Siggiewi Robert Musumeci (photo) and Cyrus Engerer – a former PN Sliema councillor. Ian Castaldi Paris had resigned his post as Lija mayor. Some three months after, Dr Castaldi Paris appeared on Labour Party TV station One TV and was highly critical of PN leader Simon Busuttil's budget speech.
In his letter of resignation, Dr Castaldi Paris (photo) had said he was resigning his post in the local council for the reason that he has resigned from the PN - a resignation which had come as a surprise to the PN.
Worthy of note is that Mr Zammit had reportedly been earmarked to be Malta’s next ambassador to the Vatican by Joseph Muscat’s administration back in March 2013.
Reportedly, Zammit was told that it was Foreign Affairs Minister George Vella who had objected to his appointment, ostensibly over the questions this appointment would have raised in the aftermath of revelations which had surfaced on Dalli tied to his 2012 trips to the Bahamas. But this had been denied by Dr Vella.