Franco Debono capitalised on issues of popular sentiment for personal gain, Nationalist general secretary Paul Borg Olivier tells The Sunday Times in an interview today.

“He would speak about meritocracy then send me an SMS saying that while someone from his class (Joseph Muscat) was Opposition leader, he was left on the backbench while ‘an idiot from birth’ had been appointed parliamentary secretary,” the outgoing general secretary says.

“How can you put such a divisive person in a position where they must seek consensus and unite?” Dr Borg Olivier says about the former Nationalist MP who brought down his government and who was recently tasked by the Labour Government with organising a convention on constitutional reform.

In his first wide-ranging interview following his party’s crushing defeat at the polls, Dr Borg Olivier talks about the electoral campaign and defends his decision to bring in his predecessor Joe Saliba and former minister Austin Gatt.

He also speaks about the party’s financial difficulties, saying although it had a “temporary problem” of cash flow, the PN had a strong asset base of political clubs.

“It breaks the perception that we are somehow dependent or taken over by contractors,” he says.