George Vella puts the record straight

Former Foreign Minister George Vella has taken the specialised European affairs newspaper European Voice to task over a mistake included in a two-page profile of EU Commissioner Joe Borg, published some weeks ago.

In a letter published this week, entitled Counting Up The Votes In Malta's General Election, Dr Vella referred to Dr Borg's profile and said that "there is a statement that needs to be corrected simply for the record".

The former MLP deputy leader drew the attention of the newspaper to a statement on the number of votes Dr Borg received in the 2003 election.

The European Voice had said that "Borg was again re-elected, with more votes than any other candidate apart from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition".

Dr Vella said this was not correct as he won more votes than Dr Borg.

Dr Vella wrote that "in the 2003 general election, Borg was elected from two electoral districts, obtaining 8,015 first-count votes from the two constituencies. The Prime Minister was also elected from two constituencies and obtained a total of 20,471 votes, whereas the Opposition Leader obtained 15,150 votes, also from two constituencies.

"I also contested those elections on two districts and managed to get a total of 9,547 first-count votes from the two constituencies. So the one who got more votes than any other candidate apart from the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader was me."

Dr Vella concluded that this does not in any way deter from the excellent showing Dr Borg had in the 2003 election and wished the Maltese Commissioner success.