Former Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia yesterday accused his party of allowing an elected parliamentarian’s supporters to register their ID cards on his family addresses within his constituency, supposedly to secure their votes.
But newly elected MP Claudio Grech claimed he was being unfairly singled out because it was an “established practice” for voters to register their ID cards on addresses of their choice.
Dr Farrugia, who shared Mr Grech’s first district but failed to get elected, wrote on Facebook: “The PN has an elected candidate whose family’s home and garage addresses were falsified on the ID cards of six families (Borg, Cachia, Cauchi, Law, Pace and Schembri) – and all this with the approval of the PN’s administration!”
He later confirmed he was referring to Mr Grech.
When contacted, Mr Grech said he and his wife registered themselves on the address of a Valletta apartment they were renting, even though they did not live there.
“But I can only vouch for us,” he said, stressing that this was a common practice that was accepted and he could not stop voters from registering themselves to any address, including his own.
He shrugged off allegations that this involved “falsification”, saying that people had a right to register their ID cards on any address since this simply determined the district in which they could vote.
“They don’t need my permission to do this,” he said, denying that he made any coordinated effort for voters to register on his apartment in Valletta or that of his parents in Ħamrun.
Mr Grech added that if this practice was suddenly deemed unacceptable, an exercise should be carried out across Parliament since he knew of several other similar cases.
“In Gozo, thousands of people do this,” he added.
When contacted, general secretary Paul Borg Olivier denied that this could have been done with the consent of the Nationalist Party administration.
“No. As if we can give that sort of consent! The change of addresses must be done within the parameters of the law,” he said.
He added: “I’m not going to go into the merits of what is acceptable or not. An elector has to declare his residence. Whether he declares it in Qormi, Birkirkara or Valletta, I have no control to verify that.”
Asked if he was ever informed about the Mr Grech’s case, Dr Borg Olivier said: “I don’t recall but I would have to check.”
Heckled by Nationalists who criticised Dr Farrugia for his various Facebook posts indirectly criticising Dr Grech, the Floriana doctor said: “I will always be a Nationalist – if the PN is not going to clean its stables now, then when?”
Dr Farrugia recently said he was retiring from politics because of the current “modus operandi” in the PN, which he said extinguished his genuine efforts.