News • 14 September 2003

Rebel MP’s former wife elopes with Labour

Matthew Vella
Marlene Pullicino, the former wife of Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, has confirmed with MaltaToday she was not ruling out the possibility of submitting her candidature for the Labour party in the coming future.
In 1998, as Marlene Pullicino Orlando, the dentist contested the general elections on the PN ticket on the fifth electoral district, garnering only 311 first-count votes.
Her move towards Labour can now only notch up Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s credibility, being in the eyes of a conservative PN electorate a more damning blow than the implications of a marriage breakdown.
"At this point in time I have not excluded anything," Dr Marlene Pullicino, also a dentist, told MaltaToday, "But what sparked my renewed affiliation to the Labour party was Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s intention to get the MLP to commit to taking Malta out of the EU at first opportunity. I reacted instantly by writing a letter to The Sunday Times in this regard.
"If the MLP had not accepted the will of the majority in this last election, I would have never thought of considering becoming active in the party. All I can say is that at this point in time it is too early to confirm anything, but I do not exclude that I might offer my services as a candidate for the general elections."
Dr Pullicino told MaltaToday she was first a paying member with the Labour party at 16 years of age: "The years of violence during the eighties distanced me from the party, and I consequently found closer vision with the Nationalist party in the 90s. Back then there were issues which the MLP had not accepted, such as decentralisation, VAT, and the European Union, which was a crucial issue for me.
Her political activism with the PN soon decreased following the 1998 general elections: "I had just given birth to my third child prior to the 1998 elections so eventually I decreased my participation," Dr Pullicino said. Now, with her daughter five years old, Marlene Pullicino is considering political activism anew within the MLP, recently having become a paying member of the Labour party,
"The MLP is updating and developing its policies. Now that the MLP is changing its policies on the EU as well, it could be the case that I get involved in the party. This is after all the party I was born into and my family was always very active within the Labour party," she said.
Dr Pullicino said her activism owed to the fact that she believed herself to be ‘Maltese before being a Labourite’: "I think this country needs an alternative government as Opposition for the coming five years.
"I don’t mean to discredit the PN. They have achieved a lot for the prosperity of the country. If there is a contribution I can make to the Labour party I am not excluding that I will be active in the coming future."
matthew@maltamag.com