It is quite strange that the letter sent by Labour MP Adrian Vassallo to some newspapers, and his subsequent harsh words on television, has been all but forgotten as far as the public is concerned. The letter announced his retirement from politics because he no longer felt he had a place in what Joseph Muscat has always called an all-inclusive party, and on the television programme he described his leader as dictatorial and communistic
I just wonder whether the same would have happened if it had been a Nationalist MP who had aimed his guns against party leader and Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, and spoken the way Adrian Vassallo did about Joseph Muscat.
I say this because for four years, the pro-Labour media – but not only them – have been on the lookout for every single sentence that has been uttered by one of the dissenting PN MPs, in particular Franco Debono, and trying to build a crisis from it. Occasionally, from the news-worthiness point of view, they were correct, but more often than not, they were wrong.
Some media, including news portals, were always quick to obtain reactions from these disgruntled PN MPs – even on matters that did not concern them or the issues they were promoting or defending. They carried the “news” repetitively, often inventing non-existing angles to keep the story running and the pressure on.
Franco Debono has been a protagonist in this sense, as he always had something to say. I do not know if it was he who was approaching the media with his comments each time his star lost some of its brightness, or whether it was the other way around. What is certain is that many times the Gћaxaq village lawyer was given the spotlight he craved, and on most occasions he did not deserve it.
He was not on his own. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Jesmond Mugliett are other dissenters who were often in the media for the wrong reasons. Again, I do not know whether it was the media who sought their opinion, or whether it was the two MPs who used sections of the media to get their message across.
But it was not the same with Adrian Vassallo. The same media that picked on every full-stop and comma when Debono, Pullicino Orlando and Mugliett spoke out, hardly reported what Adrian Vassallo had to say, if they reported it at all.
In newspaper jargon, they killed the story, or tried to.
But, if one were to be objective, in the same way that, at times, what Debono, Pullicino Orlando and Mugliett were saying merited attention – and, I repeat, this was on a few occasions, not all the time – the Labour MP’s outburst against his party and his political leader should not have been swept under the carpet; and so quickly too.
The PL – and its supporters in the media – often blasts the PN for trying to hide its internal issues. Well, in the same vein, the PL – and its supporters in the media – could now be accused of doing the same thing.
What Adrian Vassallo said about the way the party to which he belongs pushed him aside and never gave him a chance to explain himself is not how an all-inclusive party – as Joseph Muscat claims the PL is – works.
What Adrian Vassallo said about the PL wanting to gain power without knowing what do if elected to government is a clear indication that the Nationalist Party is correct when it says that Labour has nothing prepared for the eventuality of an election victory.
What Adrian Vassallo said about his leader – that he acts like a communist leader or a dictator – is the total opposite of the moderate and progressive image that Joseph Muscat has tried to portray.
In a nutshell, what Adrian Vassallo has said has more weight than what the three PN MPs have said together in these last four years.
The reasons for this are obvious, because Adrian Vassallo is not saying what he said for personal gain, or because he was not given a position he wanted, or because he was removed from a ministerial job. He is saying it on a point of principle.
Franco Debono thinks highly of himself, but on the day the Prime Minister left him out of a Cabinet reshuffle, he went on a rampage against his leader and his party. He also attacked Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici and Austin Gatt, but the issues involved were not only about the way the Justice Ministry was being run and the initial difficulties of the public transport reform.
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and his involvement in the failed Mistra development bid nearly led to a Labour victory in the March 2008 election. At a time when matters were unclear, JPO was elected from two districts, but he was not given a place in the Cabinet.
I do not think that he would have presented the divorce bill out of the blue, had he been named minister or parliamentary secretary.
Jesmond Mugliett was a minister, but in the days following the last election he was told that he was not being re-appointed. He told The Independent that he had received the news via an SMS. And apparently he did not like it.
Adrian Vassallo’s motives are like none of these – they are completely different. He has no aspirations to become a minister and neither has he been removed from the job.
He has been put aside because he voted against the party’s wishes in the divorce issue – and this after he had been told that Labour MPs had a free vote.
He feels left out – “an embarrassment,” he said – because he holds conservative views. And this after his party leader has repeatedly claimed that the doors of the Labour Party – which Joseph Muscat describes as an all-inclusive movement, or a coalition of ideas – are open for everyone.
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