Controversial PN candidate Salvu Mallia has promised to never again call Minister Helena Dalli a ‘bitch’ after he was called out yesterday evening by the minister’s husband, Patrick Dalli.
Mr Mallia had used the expletive when he shared a story, by The Malta Independent, which revealed that Dr Dalli’s youngest son, Jean-Marc, had also been put on the public payroll, following his older brother Luke and his fiancée.
Visibly irritated by the comments, Mr Dalli publicly challenged the Nationalist Party candidate for a confrontation in Valletta.
Mallia was quick to respond that he accepted the challenge, and according to what they wrote on Facebook, the two are to meet in Valletta.
The face-to-face was initially going to take place today, but the two could not agree on a time convenient to both.
So the meeting has now been put off to next week.
Later on Mr Dalli reacted to comments that his wife had forced him to meet Mr Mallia to defend her. "As if my wife needed me to defend her. She did not even take any notice of Mr Mallia. But I have the right to feel irritated by comments like Mr Mallia's and to request a meeting with him."
This morning, Mr Mallia said he reserved his right to express his anger at the way in which Dr Dalli “continued to show how corrupt this government was by turning in it into a family enterprise.”
He said, however, that he was solemnly promising Mr Dalli that he would never use that word with regard to the minister, seeing that the comment had gone down so badly with Mr Dalli.
Mr Mallia added that he was using a ‘lawyeresque style so as to conform with the rhetoric that we have become accustomed to after the passing of Dom Mintoff.
Salvu Mallia has been at the centre of controversy ever since he was accepted as a PN candidate, with leader Simon Busuttil up to now defending Mallia’s behaviour in spite of calls for the PN to distance itself from him.