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Karl Schembri
Seven anonymous abstentions, and one voter who failed to attend, sealed the last of the academics’ murmured statements on the controversial election of Juanito Camilleri, the uncontested candidate for rector at Tal-Qroqq.
Voted by 18 of the 26 university council members last Tuesday and with the Curia’s representative, Mgr Annetto Depasquale, absent from the election, Prof. Camilleri will take over the leadership of the University of Malta after 10 years of Roger Ellul Micallef and bitter bickering among academics about government’s heavy-handed intervention in the choice of rector.
Prof. Camilleri was the only candidate after he was nominated by all 13 government representatives on the council – a move which dissuaded the incumbent rector from standing for re-election and which left all the 10 faculty deans backing him incapable of finding an alternative.
Last Sunday, physics professor Edward Mallia revealed in an interview with MaltaToday that he wanted to submit his name if Ellul Micallef remained uncontested, but a council member who had told him would nominate him if the incumbent did not contest backtracked a day before the nominations process was closed.
“Ellul Micallef must have calculated that his chances of winning were thin, but there was also a chance he wouldn’t have a devastating defeat. This obsession with contesting only if you know you’re going to win makes no sense.”
Prof. Mallia hit back at academics who were lamenting that government had “imposed” its choice. “They have no right to say so if nobody contested. Heavy handed, yes, but not imposition. If the deans wanted Ellul Micallef, and Ellul Micallef would not contest, then one of them should have offered to stand for rectorship.”
Tuesday’s votes remain secret, but assuming that all 13 nominating him voted for him, Prof. Camilleri added another five non-government representatives on the university council to his list of supporters.
The seven abstentions can be interpreted as disapproval of the sole candidate or a condemnation of the heavy-handed government intervention, but then they did not nominate any alternative. Only council members can nominate candidates for the rectorship.
Also, some of them were involved in similar manoeuvrings five years ago, when Ellul Micallef was the uncontested candidate standing for his second term.
The Melita Cable CEO will transfer to the Tal-Qroqq campus in July, amid rumours making the rounds in university corridors that he will set up a new Faculty of IT that will be partly made up of existing departments in the Science and Engineering faculties.
Meanwhile, clarifying his declaration made last week that the academics’ union was against holding a poll so that professors could indicate their preference for rector, Prof. Mallia said: “I had no interest in saying or implying that UMASA stopped me or anybody else from conducting a pre-nomination ballot among academic staff. They felt rather sore about such an implication, which they felt was clearly visible in what I said.”
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
Links: www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/03/19/t9.html
www.um.edu.mt/pressreleases/2006/vision_statement
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