It has been an eventful week in a rocky legislature for the Nationalist Party. The following are some of the main developments.
Monday July 16
The Labour Party’s media publishes a recording in which they claim Richard Cachia Caruana “implicates” former Nationalist ministers Guido de Marco and Lawrence Gatt in the attempt on his life in 1994. However, in the recordings it is clear that Mr Cachia Caruana does not implicate them at all.
He is heard saying that were it not for former minister Lawrence Gatt and his escaped son (Etienne Gatt, who fled the country), “nothing would have happened” to him.
In respect to the late Emeritus President Guido de Marco, Mr Cachia Caruana is heard saying that Prof. de Marco is likely to have told Brigadier Calleja – whose son Meinrad had been accused of commissioning the attempt on his life – that the demand for the brigadier’s resignation was something pushed by Mr Cachia Caruana himself.
Even before Labour released the recording, Mr Cachia Caruana firmly rejected the notion he had suggested the ministers were implicated, while the de Marco family issued a statement condemning Labour’s story as “obscene and deplorable”.
Tuesday, July 17
The executive of the Nationalist Party convened on Tuesday evening to hear a presentation by MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando intended to support his claim that former EU envoy Richard Cachia Caruana colluded with the Labour Party in 1996 to “feather his nest”.
The meeting lasted five hours and ended with a unanimous rejection of Dr Pullcino Orlando’s claims by a show of hands after the MP failed to produce evidence to support them.
The committee moreover approved a motion by Francis Zammit Dimech that thanked Mr Cachia Caruana for his years of service and expressed solidarity with him.
Thursday, July 18
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando resigns from the Nationalist Party but stays on as an MP and pledges to “collaborate” on the government’s electoral programme.
In a press conference after the meeting Lawrence Gonzi stresses the government will forge ahead, declaring: “I take note and I move on.”
Labour leader Joseph Muscat said Dr Gonzi should call an election, describing the situation as a hung Parliament leaving families and businesses in uncertainty.