Great pressure is being put on Dom Mintoff not to attack Labour leader Alfred Sant or the party during other media appearances, MLP sources said yesterday.
Mr Mintoff appeared on Smash TV last Monday to explain what the Front Maltin Inqumu stood for, but could not resist firing a broadside at Dr Sant, recalling that he had called him a traitor four years ago. He also challenged Dr Sant to a debate on Super 1 television.
Mr Mintoff's next scheduled appearance is on TVM's Xarabank and the producers, Where's Everybody, applied to hold the programme at Pjazza Paolino Vassallo in Cospicua on Thursday at 6 p.m.
However, Cospicua mayor Joe Scerri last week wrote to the Xarabank team saying that their application had been refused.
Xarabank's presenter Peppi Azzopardi said when contacted yesterday that unless the Cospicua council issued a permit to film the programme in Cospicua, they were planning to file a constitutional case.
Former mayor Paul Muscat raised the matter at last Thursday's council meeting and asked the mayor why he had decided to refuse the permit without consulting the council, but Mr Muscat's intervention was declared out of order.
The president of the local councils' association, Dr Ian Micallef, yesterday wrote to the Cospicua mayor informing him that according to regulations, the council had to inform the police about the event within a stipulated time and the police would in turn inform the council about any conditions which should form part of the council's permit.
"It is clear that the Cospicua council has failed to do this, and hence, this is in breach of the law," Dr Micallef wrote.
Dr Micallef informed the Cospicua mayor in writing that apart from these regulations, local councils do not have absolute powers and there were other sections of law that had to be adhered to.
Sources said it was rather ironic that the Labour mayor of Cospicua was doing what the Labour government did in 1986 when it effectively stopped a Nationalist mass meeting in Zejtun (the PN had won a constitutional case after the police permit for the meeting had been withdrawn; the meeting was not allowed to proceed because of violent opposition by Labour supporters and active police intervention against Nationalist supporters).
This time Mr Scerri was trying to stop a programme in which the sole guest was going to be a former Labour Prime Minister, who for over 50 years had always been returned to Parliament from the Cospicua constituency, invariably topping the poll.
Contacted for his reactions, Mr Scerri said he refused permission for the programme to be held in his locality as he did not want people from Cospicua to fight each other.
"I know that some people in Cospicua are very angry. I heard people making certain statements and I do not want to be responsible for what might happen.
"Many are arguing that Mr Mintoff is trying to use the people of Cospicua. Mintoff has long wanted to come to Cospicua but I believe that people do not want him. He starts talking about a particular subject and then starts attacking and challenging people. I am responsible for the locality and I do not want to be responsible for what can happen," he said.
Sources close to the MLP said some people were trying to drum up support to hold a demonstration against Mr Mintoff in Cospicua - while the Xarabank programme is being filmed.
Mr Mintoff's comeback has been making waves in Labour Party circles, even though he has been given a cold shoulder by Dr Sant who reacted to Mr Mintoff's challenge for a debate by saying he had no time to meet him.
The only other reference which Dr Sant made to Mr Mintoff in public recently was on his return from Russia, when he said that the Maltese had to stand up, but not in the way Mr Mintoff wanted them.
Apart from the pressure being put on Mr Mintoff, a number of Labour stalwarts have also taken to writing about the subject.
In a strongly-worded letter in l-Orizzont, GWU president Salvu Sammut asked the former MLP leader why he was setting up his movement now and accused him of trying to confuse people's minds.
CNI activist Eddie Privitera wrote in l-Orizzont on Friday that he believed that Mr Mintoff's aim was to use the EU issue as a platform to be able to attack Dr Sant and the MLP, as Mr Mintoff is convinced that Dr Sant would win the next election.
CNI sources said Mr Mintoff had initially wanted to join the CNI but when a vote was taken within the CNI, 12 voted against and 10 in favour.
Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, who had succeeded Mr Mintoff as Labour leader and Prime Minister, and who two years ago set up the Campaign for National Independence (CNI) to campaign against EU membership, later left the CNI to join Mr Mintoff in the new front.
Efforts to contact Dr Mifsud Bonnici yesterday failed as he was in Libya, where, CNI sources said, he went to try to get support for the new movement.
Contacted for his reactions about Mr Mintoff's comeback, former Labour minister Joe Grima, who served in Mr Mintoff's Cabinet from 1981 to 1987, said: "Mr Mintoff tried to negotiate financial assisstance from several countries for Malta to remain neutral. He saw Malta as a bulwark for peace. This is utopia. The world has moved on and so have we."
Mr Grima said Dom Mintoff was "still a name in Maltese politics. It's no use saying he is living in the past. Politics is about striking a chord in people's heart and mind, and Mr Mintoff is still able to do that.
"Now Mr Mintoff wants to go to Cospicua, which is his territory. This is just his kind of political theatre.
"Mr Mintoff is very tolerant but within his limits, which some argue are very limited. But he is tolerant and if one oversteps the limits, he's finished with him. When Dr Sant called Mintoff a traitor, he overstepped his limits by several light years. There is not enough time in a man's lifetime to come back from that."