A tale of two ‘defections’

As was her right, Marisa Micallef crossed over from the Nationalist Party to the Labour Party to take a job she was offered, presumably, by Joseph Muscat because she said that she was “very pleased to be offered this really interesting role”.

Like Ms Micallef, I also crossed over and enlisted as member of the PN earlier this year because I had accepted an invitation to contest the local council elections. In all truth, I have been voting for the PN since 1992 and used to consider myself a Socialist at heart who votes with his mind for the PN. Despite this, all along those years I had always stated in the media that I wished to vote again for the PL when and if I feel that it has really changed. I may add that when George Abela decided to contest for the party leadership, I contacted him and assured him that if he were to be elected I would return to the party’s fold because I felt certain that he would reunite and reorganise the PL and accept our EU membership out of conviction and not out of necessity to obtain votes in order only to gain power for power’s sake.

Having stated the foregoing on what seems to be similar action taken by two people who do not know each other and who both had a right to do what they did, there is a major difference that I will expand upon.

Ms Micallef had crossed twice from one party to the other because when she returned from the UK some years ago she herself stated that she had been active in the British Labour Party, yet, she then started to write in the media against the PL leaders and the party’s policies. As a result, she succeeded to befriend important people within the PN and she was soon appointed chairman of the Housing Authority, something that had infuriated the PL so much that a journalist named Joseph Muscat and the party’s then new general secretary, Jason Micallef, started to attack her on their media.

Despite this, Ms Micallef was so happy in the PN that she felt she was accepted not only by top party officials but also by the grassroots and this led her to run for the general election on behalf of the PN.

However, the grassroots did not trust her enough and she never made it to become an MP. She decided, however, to become a different kind of MP (mangia e passeggia) by resigning from the Housing Authority.

For reasons of her own, Ms Micallef went back to the UK and decided to write a fictitious article titled The Blurred Kingdom, which was written and sent from London and appeared on The Times on September 29.

In this article she did not mention any PN personality by name – maybe to avoid litigation – but made blurred allegations against the PN and its kings and princes, without bringing one solid argument for her blurred accusations.

To confirm how blurred her accusations were, one should read the letter by Andrè Chetcuti, titled Do People Have Blurred Memory?, where he also quoted from previous articles by two enemies-turned-buddies, Ms Micallef and Dr Muscat, although there are many other writings by Ms Micallef to quote from and showing how blurred her accusations are.

These blurred accusations by Ms Micallef are in total contrast with my writings in the media, raising points that persuaded me to cross over to the PN and in which I repeatedly mentioned the atrocities so many people suffered under Labour Administrations, including at least two proven murders and two proven frame-ups, apart from a third one on their own former deputy leader Michael Falzon.

This article therefore confirms that while Ms Micallef and I had a right to cross from one political party to another, I did so on conviction while many people, including myself, are having doubts on what really made Ms Micallef cross over to the PL.

Who knows, she may one day become blue again if she is rejected by the grassroots!