Carnival floats to carry protest message

The usual merriment of carnival will be tinged with a hint of negativity this year as organisers ponder an uncertain future.

"We will be holding this carnival in protest," Jason Busuttil, chairman of the Għaqda Partecipanti Karnival, said yesterday.

Although he would not divulge what form the protest would take, Mr Busuttil said the message would be carried on the floats.

Moreover, the carnival organisers will be joining forces on Saturday morning to voice their frustration at their predicament.

They are facing the prospect of having nowhere to work on their floats after being asked to vacate the large stores in Luqa which they are using, casting doubts over whether the 500-year-old annual celebrations will be held next year.

"The government has been procrastinating, year after year," he said.

Although the carnival organisers have been offered an alternative site in Ta' Qali, they turned it down, mainly because it is too far from Valletta.

Despite the turmoil and uncertainty, the organisers are all set to kick off the annual carnival celebrations on Friday evening. This year, smaller floats will be roaming through Valletta's streets.

"We were originally told Freedom Square would be unavailable, so we had to go for smaller floats that could pass through Archbishop Street," Mr Busuttil said.

However, the plans have since changed, putting Freedom Square back in the picture.

For the first time this year, decorated vehicles will also be part of the defile. "We wanted to give young people, who could not make floats, the opportunity to participate," he said.

Saturday evening will bring another innovation with the night carnival held in Floriana's St Anne Street, project manager Anton Miceli said.

"There will be games for children and activities for all the family," he said.

The traditional kukkanja will also be held on Saturday evening in Floriana.

Mr Miceli said this year's dance competition is also expected to be of higher quality than previous years.

During yesterday's parliamentary sitting, Culture Minister Dolores Cristina threw some more light on the issue of Carnival float makers who had been ordered out of the premises they were using as soon as Carnival 2010 was over.

Answering a parliamentary question by Labour MP Owen Bonnici, she said that a "substantial" number of premises currently being used by Carnival participants could hardly fit the description of warehouses. Fort St Elmo and the Baroque chapel at the lower end of Merchants Street Valletta formed part of the country's built heritage, and the government had drawn up a restoration project for a number of such locations.

In order for the project to go ahead, the participants must vacate the premises and go to work in a better-suited place. This was the subject of discussions with the Carnival Participants Association.

Minister Cristina said the government had offered a site at Ta' Qali for a Carnival Village which would not only provide premises for the construction of floats but would assist in the development of the industry surrounding Carnival, in association with the tourism, art and cultural sectors.