As Frank as you can get

Frank Portelli is not just a Nationalist militant but a straight talker and a neo-liberal

Frank Portelli was a tough nut for the Nationalist party. As president of the PN Executive back in the last years of the Labour government of the 80s, he felt he could not support the amendments to the electoral law which would pave the way for the PN’s 1987 victory.
The compromise was the enactment of the Foreign Interference Act and the membership of the Non-Aligned Movement. Portelli abstained from the party executive’s vote on the electoral deal, refusing to give up such principles to regain a basic right: the PN had secured the majority of votes in 1981 but was not elected because it did not have the majority of seats. Constitutionally, Labour had won – morally, and politically, the Nationalists were the real victors.
Since 1981, the country had been deadlocked in a fearful political battle marred by bloodshed and a malfunctioning democracy. The electoral fluke saw the Nationalist Party boycotting parliament. In the ensuing years, murder and political violence would plunge the 80s in the darkest chapters of post-independence history.
Frank Portelli, a so-called “militant” of the Nationalist Party, stood steadfast in his opposition to the amendments to the electoral law. “The Labour party had usurped our right to govern and they were governing the country in spite of the fact that the PN had an absolute majority. I was not prepared to give away this right,” Portelli says. But it was a turning point in history: “Eddie Fenech Adami had stated in parliament, during the budget debate in 1986, soon after the Raymond Caruana murder that the budget they were debating was ‘irrelevant’, that the two sides should be talking about more important things.”
Dom Mintoff took Fenech Adami on his word, and the two sides started discussion which would later lead to the reform in they electoral law that would establish at least the principle that a party obtaining an absolute majority of votes would be allocated a majority of parliamentary seats. “I am personally convinced that Dom Mintoff was not happy that his party was governing his party with a minority of votes – I was and still am 100 per cent convinced that if the same scenario had repeated itself Mintoff would not have permitted his party from governing again. Certainly there was a still a shred of democracy left.
His lack of pragmatism may have found little favour. “It’s not a bad description. But I was against the negotiations with the MLP because when we won the 1981 election with a majority of votes I believed this to be a sacrosanct right.”
Frank Portelli soldiered on, getting elected to parliament in 1987. Josie Muscat, like Portelli today running a private hospital, had already withdrawn from politics in 1986: “Some party members had turned against Josie and I suppose against myself too. I spoke to Eddie Fenech Adami and at the time he agreed that I could approach Josie to keep him on board. Francis Zammit Dimech and I went to speak to Josie, who was obviously hurt, but we also found resistance from within. That’s politics.”
Frank Portelli’s first encounter in the local political scene came after he wrote a letter to The Sunday Times of Malta denouncing the fact that the chief justice JJ Cremona had expressed himself in open court, suggesting a different line of attack to the public prosecutor. “The prosecutor – whom I know personally as a very honest person – did not take up the cue, in spite of repeated suggestions by an exasperated Cremona, who was heard to say ‘is this man dumb? (dan ebete?)”, during the hearing of the dispute between the government and the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary who ran the Blue Sisters Hospital.
“The Blue Sisters hospital was one of two private hospitals, the other being St Catherine’s Hospital in Attard. Both hospitals did a great job at the time and they were very affordable since the nuns worked there unpaid, basically as an act of charity.”
Following the publication of this letter both Frank Portelli and the editor of the Sunday Times were arraigned in court for contempt, an arrest warrant issued against him.
Portelli sought help from lawyer Joe Galea Debono, a university contemporary, who rallied behind him Vanni Bonello and Jo-Jo Mifsud Bonnici. In the constitutional battle that followed, they were supported by 99 lawyers: “It was basically a show of no confidence in the chief justice,” Portelli says. Cremona and another judge resigned and the case was deferred sine die. The nuns however, were later expelled from Malta and the hospital closed down after it had its licence withdrawn and its premises requisitioned.
“I wasn’t an impassioned Nationalist, but I had seen that the Labour party had lost its direction, and was losing its democratic credentials by not controlling violence. When I arrived to Malta I realised that people were actually scared of buying the PN newspaper.”
That dark chapter is forever fixed in the former MP’s head. The moment he recalls vividly, an enduring image of the state of affairs that characterised the 80s, was during the 1981 electoral count at the Ta’ Qali counting hall: “It was something like 2.00am. We were seeing a majority of votes for the PN as the counting was underway. Suddenly there was a change of guard: the police officers were substituted by army soldiers who were holding loaded machine guns, right behind us in the counting hall. Outside there was some commotion and I stepped outside, where Lawrence Pullicino, the Commissioner of Police, riding a white horse, said: ‘I cannot guarantee your safety’. Can you imagine this from a police commissioner, who is there to protect everyone?
“To be fair, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, a complex character himself, started to escort PN canvassers outside the compound so as not to be physically attacked.”
Portelli narrowly failed to secure a parliamentary seat that year, and although the parliamentary group was in favour of co-opting him, having obtained more than 1,440 votes first count, the executive committee forged ahead with another candidate who had just 80 first-count votes: “a candidate who had canvassed strongly for Fenech Adami to be leader.”
He was later elected in 1987. Change ensued. The most important thing, Portelli says, was the return of democracy: “after 1987 you could stand outside Parliament, and say you don’t agree with Eddie Fenech Adami, and nobody would attack you. You have to give everyone their due – you can forget everything Fenech Adami did, because in the end gave us back democracy. This is something you cannot forget – if you were against the labour government, all doors would be closed to you – to go to university you need a ‘parrinu’ – a patron saint – you could not get a telephone… I didn’t, you couldn’t get a job, or a promotion or television – you could get beaten up instead.”
Still, even after 1987, more remnants of the dark past were left in the echelons of the public sector, the police force. JJ Cremona himself, was retained as a judge in the European Court. “Well, the opportunity to make changes is always at the beginning. After 16 years of an intolerant, socialist government there was a small window to do certain things. As 1986 approached, Labour tried to win over support – because if they governed they wanted to do it with an absolute majority – by handing out 9,000 jobs in the public sector.”
In 1992, Portelli’s bid for re-election did not succeed. I tell him that realistically, despite his popularity with the people on the street, his right-wing, conservative image was not welcome within the party.
“Of course some things did work against me. You have people in the party who are sycophants. Every party likes people who toe the party line. Few will have the guts to say they disagree openly with the leader of the party, because he may well become the next prime minister – and in our system all patronage rests with the prime minister. Never did it occur to me to think that saying what I felt was right would damage my chances of becoming a minister or whatever. I was popular with the party councillors. After a hot debate an MP once told me I was the ‘party’s conscience’. But in 1992 my constituency had, like Gaul, been split into three parts, the main villages branching out into three different districts. I think this was Maurice Zarb Adami’s proposal in the electoral committee… he is a lifelong friend to me. I have no doubt he did what he felt was right even if he knew it would affect me badly.”
In 1999, Portelli was offered a “challenge” – St Philips Hospital had been running at a yearly Lm1 million loss, and he was offered to tackle the problem. The hospital was equipped to British standards, but there was little business, and was haemorrhaging badly. The original investors had had enough of losing money. Today he has managed a turnaround for the hospital, more than Lm1 million has been paid back, and the hospital no longer runs at a loss.
St Philip’s Hospital certainly produced one of MaltaToday’s most followed reports, when former Labour MP Louis Buhagiar was reported to have allegedly overcharged his patients. The extensive report landed the newspaper in a libel suit, subsequently losing the case with a hefty Lm4,000 in damages. The sentence is being appealed.
But last week, Frank Portelli claimed Louis Buhagiar’s assets as declared to parliament, did not make sense. Portelli told Malta Today that in his view Buhagiar’s declarations have been seriously under-declared, and he has asked the Speaker of the House to investigate his declarations.
“I had received several complaints on Dr Buhagiar, essentially on excessive fees. Buhagiar was eventually suspended from the hospital, because he was giving us a bad name. The figures he declared do not tally, by a long shot. The Speaker has written back that it is not in his remit to investigate the matter. Our MPs are not required to make a declaration of their assets, and in 2002 Buhagiar did not deposit his assets.
“To my great surprise in the case of Dr Buhagiar, his fees were issued through a non-legal entity called The Medical Centre – hundreds of thousands of liri in fees were issued through this entity not for the services of this Centre, but for his services as a doctor. I am saying that in a period of three years, there is a discrepancy nearer to Lm500,000 than it is to Lm50,000.”
Across the valley from St Philip’s, a medical monolith is also haemorrhaging millions in public funds. Mater Dei has now graduated from a San Raffaele specialized branch for cancer patients into a matryoshka of sorts, only this time the nesting doll was having larger versions placed upon one another. And at this stage, where do we draw the line on social security and the growing national health bill?
“You cannot give everything to everyone – anyone who believes this really ought to have his head examined. Even a millionaire has the right to go to St Luke’s Hospital for a hernia operation without incurring payment if he has not paid his national insurance or skived on his income tax. Then you have patients who have cancer and the NHS cannot give them treatment because it is so expensive. I believe that affordable treatment and inexpensive operations should be paid by all who can afford it. Yes, I agree with a form of means-testing. The NHS should be there as a safety net for those who cannot afford treatment and for very expensive treatment.”
Portelli has possibly never ruled out a deeper re-engagement with the Nationalist party in the future. “All political careers end in tears unless one leaves at the right time and possibly return at the opportune time”. The Nationalist Party, he says, is fundamental to his beliefs: “but I don’t say my party right or wrong – I say to my party I think this is right or it is wrong.
“I think the Party has to look for those people who have much to offer the party, and involve them as much as possible. You could have people with different ideals, but provided they have the same principles of the Nationalist Party, they should be included… I have no doubt that many are not included presently. Now to get back on that mosquito you think is locked up and trying to come out, maybe hinting at some return to the political stage… political life has one principle Saviour: never say never. The party could even ask you, they could tell you: look we need you, Saviour…”
I doubt it.

Additional notes Matthew Vella