News • December 07 2003

Former sons forgotten by Nationalist party

In elections there are the victors and the vanquished. Seven months ago the electorate castigated a number of long standing members of parliament. Many simply disappeared with no tears shed in the media. Worst for them, their own party conveniently ignored their plight. The case of former deputy speaker and PN representative on the MEPA Board, Michael Bonnici is one that has attracted the attention of MaltaToday. The former Nationalist MP lost his parliamentary job. Mr Bonnici, from Zebbug, is a laboratory technician by profession and he was hoping for some consideration from his government, but nothing came of that. Worse was still to come when Michael Bonnici was obliged to register for work adding to the number of unemployed.
When contacted yesterday, Mr Bonnici was visibly irked by the questions related to his unemployment. A MaltaToday journalist attempted to speak to him three times and on each and every occasion he slammed the phone down.
Mr Bonnici is not the only one to have been forgotten by the PN administration. In 1996, Stanley Zammit then a parliamentary secretary and a keen environmentalist, was also not re-elected.
A doctor by profession and a general practitioner, he found himself stationed in a government policlinic, finding no better career opportunity. He too was ignored and erased from the party.

Dr George Hyzler Jnr suffered a similar experience after his short stint as parliamentary secretary, returning to his profession as a lawyer.
Dr Michael Axiaq from B’Kara went under in the 2003 election to Tonio Fenech, and he too was left un-rewarded by the party he had worked so hard for.
The only individual who appears to have been re-invited into the fold by the party structures appears to be Jean Pierre Farrugia, a social-oriented doctor who lost his parliamentary seat place in the first district to Mario de Marco. Although lacking in political acumen and far from enthusiastic about his political career, the young de Marco lawyer was heavily advantaged with the timely and unconventional intervention of his father, the President of the Republic Guido de Marco.
Others who also failed to make it include Michael Refalo, who waits patiently for a calling from the Prime Minister to hopefully replace de Marco as President, but that too could very well be a case of pie in the sky.