The Nationalist Party executive yesterday decided to stand by its decision to ban MP Franco Debono from contesting the election on the party ticket, after a two-hour meeting in which Dr Debono challenged the ban on procedural grounds.
Debono’s action was politically unacceptable
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said Dr Debono’s behaviour – voting with Labour against his own party whip to oust former minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici – was “politically unacceptable”, giving the PN executive the “right and duty” to express itself through a condemnation.
Therefore, he said, the decision remained unchanged. Sources said no motion was presented and no vote was taken.
The meeting was held at the request of Dr Debono who was banned from the party’s candidate list together with two other dissenters, Nationalist MP Jesmond Mugliett and now independent MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. Both had previously declared they would not be seeking re-election.
Dr Debono made no comment after the meeting.
The meeting was overshadowed by a thunderstorm that brought traffic around Pietà to a standstill and flooded the basement of the PN’s headquarters, prompting the Civil Protection Department to send four fire engines to pump out the rainwater.
Before entering the meeting, Dr Debono made several rhetorical questions to the press about the financing of the PN’s headquarters, raising the issue of party funding and the lack of regulation of political parties in Malta – one of his eternal battle cries.
He was not the only one to make a statement before the meeting. Dr Mifsud Bonnici and Health Minister Joe Cassar – who has recently become a prime target of Dr Debono – walked in with locked arms in a symbolic show of unity.
Today Dr Debono is expected to move a motion of no confidence against Dr Cassar regarding shortcomings in the health sector. (See: Gonzi is still eyeing early 2013 election)
Dr Debono has long been arguing publicly that his re-election ban went against the principles of natural justice since he was not given a chance to defend himself and the decision was not taken by an independent or impartial body but by some of the people he had long been criticising.
He has not said how he is planning his political future but, tellingly, in his blog yesterday he said he was informed that “some people” were seeing the need for a new political party, whose first campaign would be constitutional and electoral reform.
After the meeting, asked if he was going to set up his own party Dr Debono refused to comment.
He recently said he was not prepared to support the government during November’s Budget vote if Transport Minister Austin Gatt remained in Cabinet, raising further speculation about the government’s stability.
Parliament reconvenes in October after summer recess.