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Karl Schembri
The sword of Grand Master Anton Manoel de Vilhena is the latest source of controversy in the local council of Floriana.
The whole issue revolves around the authenticity of the current council’s coat of arms featuring the emblem of the patron Grand Master: a lion and a sword on a white and red background.
Former Mayor and now independent councillor Nigel Holland, together with other vehement Furjanizi, want to remove the sword, insisting that the Grand Master only granted the lion from his own coat of arms when he inaugurated the Valletta suburb and named it Borgo Vilhena.
The fountain with the statue of a majestic lion guarding the entry into Floriana, built by the Grand Master around 1728, as well as several other representations of the lion on historic local emblems, seem to give credence to Holland’s case, but the mayor disagrees.
Holland insists the sword was erroneously inserted in the council’s coat of arms and “imposed by central government” when it set up the first local councils back in 1993.
He is proposing a council motion “to rehabilitate the coat of arms, in respect to history and to our forefathers” and to adopt the official one bearing “the red lion on a white background, as it should be”.
But what is seemingly an innocuous motion is turning into yet another fracas in the council where controversies are never in short supply.
Seconded by PN councillor Connie Holland, the motion was intended to be presented for a council vote last Monday, but Labour councillor Brian Zammit, who is known to be in favour of the “rehabilitation”, called for the vote to be postponed.
During the council meeting, Zammit publicly stated that the reason for asking for a deferral was “because at this stage I cannot vote according to my conscience”.
The declaration quickly aroused Holland’s suspicions that the two labour councillors, Zammit and Ivan Hallett, were being given instructions by their party to side with independent Mayor Publio Agius, who is against changing the coat of arms. The motion needs a two-thirds majority of votes – that is four out of five – to be effective.
“I never discussed our coat of arms with the party,” Zammit told MaltaToday. “I basically called for the deferral so that I can discuss this with the Floriana people, because even though I am in favour of removing the sword I have to reflect the voters’ wishes. This is not just an ordinary vote about a pavement but a historic one.”
On the other hand mayor Agius insists that the sword should remain where it is.
“I conducted my own research and it is clear that the sword should remain there,” Agius said. “The truth is that de Vilhena’s coat of arms was too similar to Grand Master de La Cassiere’s emblem, so he started including the sword to differentiate from his predecessor’s. So if Floriana is Borgo Vilhena then it should reflect his emblem. I’m convinced of that.”
Personal animosity between the two independents on the five-member Floriana council has been brewing at least since last December, when Agius secured the votes of labour councillors to get the mayor’s seat.
News that the Malta Labour Party’s Secretary General had directed the two councillors to vote for Agius made former mayor Holland go berserk as he accused the new mayor of “enjoying nobody’s confidence” and said the MLP’s interference went “against every principle of local autonomy”. In reply, Agius demanded that Holland resign; something which the latter dismissed outright.
Holland has been recently publishing and distributing his own subversive newspaper post called Floriana L-Ewwel, with the emblematic lion on its masthead, denigrating Agius and inciting locals in patriotic tones against “the betrayal of our forefathers”.
Agius is appealing to Holland to behave and has issued a memo to all councillors to act civilly during council meetings.
The motion is expected to be put to a vote on 22 March. Up until then, the Grand Master’s sword will keep hanging over the Valletta suburb.
karl@newsworksltd.com
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