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Meeting at Mintoff’s residence debates Cottonera manifesto

While the news bulletins reported that Agatha Barbara had passed away, only some three kilometres away from the former President’s home, a meeting was taking place at the house of her idol, Il-Perit, in Tarxien

The former Premier and Labour leader appeared tired to his entourage, but he was still lucid and setting the pace of the discussion.

He told the men around him that they should get themselves organised in Cottonera. Some time ago a ‘Free Cottonera Movement’ was launched, aimed at eliminating the bipartisanship which dogs politics and giving local politics a stronger voice. Its creation was traced back to Dom Mintoff’s residence.

But the movement now seems to be moving up a gear, with Mintoff suggesting at this latest meeting that a manifesto should be drawn up and presented to the Labour party. He made a condition: "They have to accept it and then we will work together. Reject it and we take them on."

The meeting, which was called by Father Dionysius Mintoff, Dom Mintoff’s brother, was attended by the ever-faithful Sammy Meilaq, a respected former militant with the dockyard and Tony Coleiro, the GWU secretary of the dockyard section.

Mark Montebello, the renegade Dominican priest and Joe Paris, the former president of the MLP Cospicua club were also there, along with Edwin Bartolo, better known as il-Qahbu, who has served a long prison sentence for his role in interfering in the electoral process and Paul Muscat, the Cospicua mayor. Mr Muscat has admitted to fabricating a story about election rigging in the Alfred Sant versus Lino Spiteri leadership election in 1992.

On arriving, Mark Montebello talked about the Kalkara issue and Tony Coleiro on the situation at the dockyards. However, Il-Perit was more interested in raising the issue of a manifesto for the Cottonera area.

He said that a manifesto on Cottonera should be drafted and agreed to and presented to the Labour party with a message.

He said that if the MLP accepted it then ‘we’ would work together and then very significantly if not ‘we’ would take them on and work independently.

This is not the first time that Il-Perit has discussed with individuals matters that may be interpreted as confrontational with the Labour party.

In 1998, he flirted with Alternattiva Demokratika and urged some of their leaders to change their name to attract potential Labour dissidents. They did just that with the name Alleanza Socjali – Alternattiva Demokratika but failed to attract Labour dissidents or more votes.

Traditionally the 85-year-old Dom Mintoff does not talk to journalists but tells them what to say. Every attempt to contact him by MaltaToday has failed or ended up in a severe rebuke.

When a MaltaToday journalist contacted Father Montebello by phone about the manifesto for Cottonera, he would neither confirm nor deny anything

When Cospicua Mayor and estranged Labour member Paul Muscat was contacted he insisted that he had no idea whether a manifesto or something of the sort was a topic of conversation : "I did not stay long there, so I do not know if something of the sort was discussed."

Mr Muscat said that he had visited Mintoff to ask him for advice about China, since he has apparently been invited to China by the Chinese government.

The revelation that Dom Mintoff still has an inclination to impose his political agenda on Cottonera spells trouble for the Labour party. The MLP have tried to reach out to Mintoff but have failed miserably.