News 08/09/2002

Dom Mintoff all out to create trouble for Labour Party

President Guido Demarco in secret meeting with former Premier

Former Premier Dom Mintoff has met Prof. Guido Demarco in an unpublicised meeting at The Palace. The 73 year old President met the 86 year old former premier after his official engagements last Thursday at 1pm at The Palace. The meeting lasted until 2pm. When contacted the office of the President confirmed with MaltaToday that the meeting did in fact take place.

The former Premier who still thinks that he can garner enough public support for his bizarre vision for Malta was yesterday also reported in the press to have said at his residence some time back that if the need be the party (the MLP) should face a split.

The arrogant and unpredictable former idol of the Labour Party hopes to return with his own brand of foreign politics: a move that will dampen the Labour Party’s present feel good factor. The MLP have still not found sufficient reason to forgive him for his personal contribution to the downfall of the Labour government in 1998.

Snubbed by his own party in 1998, he found support in the PN media, who made the fundamental mistake of trying to soften the Dom Mintoff image, only to discover his double game and play on words.

When asked, the President’s office did not wish to discuss the topics raised by Mr. Mintoff, but it is highly probable that the issue of European Union membership was the issue of discussion.

Dwarfed by octogenarian Mintoff, MLP former Premier Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, the man who runs the Campaign for National Independence was also present for the meeting.

Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici is best remembered for his outlandish comments about the European Union including his farcical remarks on AIDS and the EU.

He seems to have made a full circle and returned to his original vocation as Mintoff’s puppet, an unkind description that many of his Ministers will confirm when he served as Prime Minister in the last years of the 1981 Labour administration. A time where Mr Mintoff continued to exert considerable influence from his office at the House of the Four Winds, then not in his capacity as Chairman of Countertrade but as the de facto leader of the Labour Party.

MaltaToday can also now confirm that in recent weeks, Dom Mintoff has been anxious to meet several deputies and candidates. This includes deputies and candidates from both sides of the political divide, they have visited Mr. Mintoff at his residence in Tarxien.

They include some very well-known personalities with an axe to grind against Alfred Sant.

However, it appears that Mr. Mintoff’s magic wand and spell may be waning fast. One of his former disciples and acolytes, Tony Colerio, the gruff and unrefined union representative who once captained a protest against Tony Zarb with placards depicting his boss as a teletubby, revealed in the daily L-Orrizont what Dom Mintoff had said in a meeting at his residence. Mr. Mintoff according to Mr Coleiro had said that he saw nothing wrong in having another split in the Labour party if that was what was necessary.

The union leader was writing an open letter to Paul Muscat the estranged former Labour mayor, he pleaded with him to put the interest of the Malta Labour Party before all other considerations so that Malta would not continue to sink in the dirt and corruption of the Nationalist government.