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Far right candidate on Valletta MLP ticket

The fact that an extreme right wing would-be councillor is contesting the local council elections on a Labour party ticket serves only to highlight the lack of screening currently carried out on party candidates.

Joe Meli is a candidate with the MLP on the Valletta district. He gives away business cards of his name and an organisation called 'Beltin barra mill-Belt’, (Valletta citizens living outside of Valletta). Mr Meli is not only known for his love of Valletta but also for his far right and neo-fascist beliefs. He talks openly of his admiration for Benito Mussolini. Until very recently he donned a badge of the Italian Fascist splinter party, the Movimente Sociale Italiano (MSI) and the last time he met a journalist he greeted him with a nazi salute and shouted ‘Sieg Heil’.

Political parties do not use special criteria to select candidates for the local council elections, but with the likes of Joe Meli around, they had better start implementing a screening process.

There appears to be no strenuous selection process within the Nationalist party or the Labour party, and the number of councillors who have fallen foul of the party is quite high. Indeed there has been some difficulty attracting the better candidates and some very good councillors have opted to call it a day.

Elected councillors in the past have not only embarrassed the parties they represent but also have proved that they have no vision for their locality.

Many lack appreciation for the area and an understanding of the principles of managing a council. Most see the elections as a stepping stone to the national elections and many have used this in an effective way - Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, Joseph Cuschieri, Silvio Parnis, Dolores Cristina, Helen D’Amato, Michael Axiaq and Gavin Gulia were once councillors and now serve as deputies. Many still contest both the local councils and national elections.

Mr Meli's political convictions are well known to his acquaintances, his adulation for the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini is known to everyone and yet the Labour party failed to pick this up. What could be worse is that the MLP selection team considered this to be a minor issue.

The Labour party has a vast array of candidates, from both the blue and white-collar segment of society.

A most interesting MLP candidate is Doreen Attard Montaldo who is the former spouse of labour deputy John Attard Montaldo.

She hopes to contest the Zebbug council but is still awaiting some court judgements related to her nomination.

Although she is Sliema born, Ms Attard Montaldo is respected in the Zebbug constituency and was one of her former husband’s most effective campaigners and canvassers. Her success in this local council is also an indicator of how her former husband will fare in the national election.

Coincidentally last night, Super One the Labour party's media mouthpiece, reported that a PN candidate for Valletta council who had been investigated on a fraud charge was being allowed to contest for the Nationalist party. Joe Borda, who served as councillor, was accused by the police of falsifying the signature of the Valletta council secretary in 1998 to issue a permit for a reserved parking place.