It was clear from day one that the motion against Malta’s permanent representative to the European Union Richard Cachia Caruana was a personal issue. The trumped-up allegations of improper behaviour were only a camouflage for a very nasty attack that culminated in a vote taken in Parliament that forced his resignation.
We had seen a similar scenario three weeks earlier, when alleged shortcomings in the work carried out by Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici were used as an excuse to launch a vicious assault that also had led to the minister throwing in the towel after Parliament voted in favour of a Labour Party motion.
In both instances, Nationalist MPs – first Franco Debono and then Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando – crossed the floor to join the Labour Opposition to oust a colleague on their side of the House and an ambassador who has been instrumental in Malta’s success story in the EU – both before and after membership.
As if on cue, an example of this sterling work arrived on Wednesday when the European Commission approved Air Malta’s restructuring plan to allow the Maltese government to grant the national airline €130 million to address its financial difficulties.
Rightly so, Mr Cachia Caruana was next to Finance Minister Tonio Fenech when a press conference was held on Wednesday. And it is a great pity that his wealth of experience will be lost because of a personal grudge. Like anybody else, he may be liked or disliked, but nobody can question his work ethic and the high level of professionalism in his duties as an ambassador for Malta.
His services will be lost because Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando thought it fit to vote with the Labour Party, which abhors Mr Cachia Caruana as he was behind successive Nationalist Party election wins and a series of Nationalist government achievements. In JPO, Labour found an ally for getting their revenge. It was yet another case of the political opportunism for which the Labour Party has unfortunately become famous in these past few months as it pushes for an early election.
That the matter was “personal” was confirmed – if ever there was a need – last Tuesday, when JPO increased the strength of his attack on Mr Cachia Caruana by writing to the PN’s executive committee president Marthese Portelli to demand the ambassador’s expulsion from the party.
It takes some cheek for JPO to allege collusion between Mr Cachia Caruana and the Labour Party just days after JPO voted with Labour. I wonder who colluded with whom.
It also takes some cheek for JPO to say that Mr Cachia Caruana fomented the unrest which had led to difficulties for PN leader Lawrence Gonzi – when JPO has been a thorn in the side of his party for years, first with the Mistra development scandal, which started before the 2008 election and continued afterwards, and later by going solo on the divorce issue, a situation that led to an embarrassing political defeat for the party he represents.
I think that the Nationalist Party has been too lenient with him – and with Franco Debono too – for the way he has behaved over the years. If anything, the PN executive should consider expelling him and Franco Debono for voting with the Opposition in the two instances mentioned earlier, not Mr Cachia Caruana.
One good thing about the next election is that it will bring the political careers of both to an end.
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The Times online reported that Franco Debono is sure that the members of the PN executive committee who are against his contesting the election as a PN candidate are in a minority.
Yes, and the world is flat.
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The photo we published on our sister daily last Tuesday says it all about Franco Debono.
Our photographer caught him peeking at the questions he was to be asked by Reno Bugeja during the TV programme Dissett. When the presenter left the studio for some time, the MP went up to Reno’s desk to check what questions the journalist had prepared. The look on Franco’s face, captured on camera, leaves room for no other interpretation – he was pleased that he thought he was one up against Reno.
Caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he said it was a joke. But it was no joke at all. His credibility is below zero.
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Here’s a quote from Confucius I came across on Facebook this week that big-headed politicians should try to understand: “The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions”.
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It is so strange that it takes just one vote of an MP who has a personal grudge against a minister or an ambassador to force the resignation of that minister or ambassador, but then there is a need for two-thirds of the House of Representatives to remove a judge or a magistrate – even when this judge or magistrate is in breach of the Code of Ethics laid down by the Commission for the Administration of Justice.
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The number of wet blankets is growing.
Last week, the government opened the water park in Bugibba, an initiative that is drawing the crowds as parents see it as somewhere their children can play in a safe environment.
But we first had hydrologist Marco Cremona saying that the project is unsustainable and that it will increase water shortages. Then we had Chris Fearne, a Labour candidate who, through an NGO called Celebrities for Kids, expressed concern about the opening hours of the park which, he said, were harmful for children because of the heat.
Maybe Marco Cremona is still living in the 1980s when water shortages were the order of the day. As for Chris Fearne, as the ministry rightly pointed out, using his argument the beaches should be closed during the day.
Yes, the number of wet blankets is increasing – excuse the pun.
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