|
Karl Schembri
PN secretary general Joe Saliba told MaltaToday he was “happy” that the confidential report he had commissioned about his party’s failure at the 2004 European Parliament elections was leaked to the media.
“The more they write about it, the better,” he said when contacted in the wake of l-orizzont’s publication of the report serialised over the week. “I always wanted it published.”
On the other hand, Godfrey Grima, who was a prominent member on the commission to analyse the EP result said he was ‘f***ing livid’ about the leak.
Saliba’s statement contrasts with what he had said months after the report was concluded, when he had announced the party’s executive had decided not to publish the report.
“I can’t make it public because the executive decided not to,” Saliba said in January last year. “In a way I understand this decision because the report speaks about changes within the party and about the strategy to be adopted, so you understand that we can’t make it public because we would be giving our strategy away.”
Shortly after the 2004 election, he had said he would publish it.
“The PN is the only party to consistently make public this type of analysis,” Saliba had told this newspaper.
Yet the report was kept in such great secrecy that not even the party’s executive committee members were allowed to read it.
Now he is happy the report is out, or that’s what “We didn’t publish it because the commission I set up to do it wanted to keep it confidential,” Saliba said. “But I’m not concerned about the leaks, at all. We have nothing to hide.”
That is the opposite reaction to Godfrey Grima’s – a member of the commission set up by Saliba to analyse the defeat and who was previously commissioned by Labour to do the same following the MLP’s 2003 defeat.
“I’m livid,” he said about the leak. “F***ing livid. Quote me on that. This was a betrayal of the first order. It’s absolute cowardice. Whoever did it dishonoured himself and his party.”
What seems like an overreaction from Grima is in fact pre-emptive defence against potential calumny. According to the secretary general, only Saliba and Gonzi have a copy of the leaked report within the party. The only other people to have the report were the commission members, with Grima as the driving force behind the commission. In other words, if neither Saliba nor Gonzi leaked it, it had to be someone from the commission.
“It couldn’t come out of the party,” Saliba said.
“If Saliba is right, then it had to be one of us,” Grima conceded. “But I have full faith in the commission members. I know we’re all people of integrity.”
The commission included Abigail Mallia, a former Xarabank production assistant, psychiatrist Anton Grech, permanent secretary Frank Mifsud, and secretary John O’ Dea.
All of them, except Grech who could not be contacted, told MaltaToday they did not leak the report.
“I don’t even know there’s a leak,” O’ Dea said when contacted on his mobile abroad.
“Definitely, it wasn’t me,” Mifsud said. “In fact I destroyed my copy. I was a bit surprised with the leak to a certain extent, but these things happen all the time.”
Mallia also denied she leaked the document.
“I didn’t leak it and I don’t believe it was anyone on the commission,” she said. “We had agreed it would remain confidential.”
That brings us back to square one: Who leaked the report? Grima believes it was “someone who wanted to embarrass Saliba”. Saliba says he is just not worried about it. He is just happy.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt |
