'The PN needs new direction' | John Dalli

This week the Appeals Court upheld a guilty verdict in the case of Joe Zahra, confirming the pseudo-private investigator’s 17-month jail term for having fabricated a report alleging corruption during the procurement of a multi-million euro Mater Dei contract – the same report which had ousted John Dalli from his post as foreign minister in July 2004.

Dalli was ‘politely’ asked to resign by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, who – basing himself on the contents of the damning but fabricated report (which implied that Dalli’s brother Sebastian was in cahoots with the director of contracts in a network of kickbacks from the successful bidder Inso SpA) – had specifically told him: “I cannot have a minister under investigation.”

Dalli spent the next years in the government backbench, occasionally expressing his personal view of the Gonzi administration in a newspaper column. Then he was ‘rehabilitated’ by Gonzi himself, just ahead of the 2008 general election, denouncing the fabrications of Zahra, and announcing that Dalli was to be his advisor on financial affairs – a symbolic posting aimed at giving the impression that his former leadership rival was now his ally at the OPM.

By the time he was re-elected and given the social policy super-ministry, Dalli was once again riding the crest of a new wave of backbench disillusion. And it was at this moment that Gonzi decided to appoint the minister as European Commissioner.

But even with his sojourn in Brussels, the imprisonment of Zahra in Corradino Prisons, where he will stay for at least a minimum of 10 months, has rekindled Dalli’s memory of what he calls was a “political assassination” by people close to Lawrence Gonzi.

I meet the EU Commissioner the day after the Appeals Court confirmed Zahra’s conviction. Asked to react to Zahra’s final conviction, Dalli calmly recalls the personal hardship he and his family endured. “We have been through a lot, and this is why I say Zahra’s conviction is really not enough: firstly because the directors of Dutch firm Simed who contracted Zahra, promising him €2 million should they have been awarded the Mater Dei medical equipment contract, have amazingly got away with murder.”

Dalli insists the company directors were directly involved in his downfall. “The directors of Simed actually fomented the report with Zahra, and even passed on the fabricated accusations to the Prime Minister who had me removed. They were instrumental in my political assassination.”

At the same time, however, Dalli hints there was more than just corruption involved. “I don’t believe that this was a simple case of greed for money on Joe Zahra’s part. This whole saga carried a clear political stamp with it.”

Today, John Dalli believes it is perfectly legitimate to ask who is going to shoulder political responsibility for his removal. “There is a high level of political responsibility to shoulder for my case, because at the same time there was a well coordinated attack in my regard through the media.”

Is Dalli convinced that there was a hidden hand?

“It’s not a case of a hidden hand, it was a prepared plan intended to get rid of me,” Dalli says, hinting at the political maneuvering that had got underway during the 2004 leadership contest against Lawrence Gonzi, and the events after Gonzi’s formal election. “It was the way things were fabricated and secretly passed around behind my back, while a series of other allegations were being fabricated in my regard.”

Dalli insists that he never knew about the Joe Zahra report, not even when it was on the Prime Minister’s desk – delivered to him by Simed’s directors a full month before the PM first asked Dalli to resign, and then gave the report to the Commissioner of Police to investigate.

“This, to me, was shattering because it breached the principle of transparency and loyalty, as I was kept in the dark about what I was being accused of.

“Simultaneously, other stories were being conjured up, such as the one about the purchasing of airline tickets by my ministry, that was eventually also thrown out by the Auditor General,” Dalli says, referring to the Times report detailing the purchase of airline tickets by Dalli’s foreign ministry secretariat from Tourist Resources Ltd, a company with direct ties to his daughter.

“I dare say that all these things happened with one specific scope: to have me removed, because perhaps I was considered a threat to certain people,” Dalli says.

Dalli also alludes to a concerted campaign orchestrated by the media in the same period of time in 2004, when he was also facing allegations by Labour that he had used his ministerial influence to get the Irisl shipping line to choose his son-in-law’s shipping agency as their Malta reps.

“There are those who had clear political interests, who ganged up together to have me ousted, and we all know how the clique that was formed in the media: mostly in the Times, the Sunday Times and TV production company Where’s Everybody.”

Dalli doesn’t mince his words and goes straight to mentioning the names of who he believes played an intrinsic role in 2004 that contributed to his resignation. He mentions Times journalist Ivan Camilleri – who was already mentioned as the PBS journalist ‘who kept up the attack on several occasions’ in his 2004 letter of resignation – and his brother Alan Camilleri, then spokesman for Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, and today the chairman of Malta Enterprise.

So is Dalli expecting prosecutions? “If we are looking for transparency, then all these people who fabricated and conjured this very serious attack, must be investigated,” he insists.

I interrupt Dalli to explain to him that the Appeals Court stressed that Joe Zahra’s actions could have spelt “serious national consequences.”

“Of course… there were definitely serious national consequences because I had to resign and – at the rist of sounding presumptuous – I was a leading minister in cabinet, and I was forced to resign because the fabrications were serious.”

Dalli says he now feels his integrity has been restored, calling it the ‘most important thing’. “I always insisted with Gonzi, in the many discussions we had at that time, that I wanted my name back, and I made sure that he got the message, because my name was ruined.”

He goes further, claiming the plotters behind his resignation wanted him “dead and buried”.

After Gonzi’s symbolic rehabilitation of Dalli in late 2007, Dalli was eventually elected from his home district, but he also managed to garner 1,800 on the Tenth electoral district, the Sliema stronghold. “That district was rife with disillusioned voters, and I was more than satisfied to have garnered so many votes from people who were hurt and found refuge in voting for me, who like them was hurt.”

Dalli says he faced a bewildered Joe Saliba, then PN secretary-general, when he informed him about his decision to contest Sliema. “He looked at me, dismayed, and asked me if I was serious, and I replied, ‘yes I am going to contest there because those are people who need me there,’ and I was proved right.”

Today he is European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs. While jet-setting from capital to capital on EU business, Dalli admits his mind and heart never departed from the vicissitudes of both Malta and the PN.

He says his relationship with Gonzi is somewhat functional. “We talk… I’m in Brussels, and he is in Malta… We exchange messages should there be any need of anything, but the relationship reflects our respective roles: I being the Commissioner, and he the Prime Minister,” he states, giving the picture of a rather formal and professional, albeit distant, political relationship.

Dalli still claims to be a Maltese politician in spite of his posting away from the island. “I attend most political activities, I am extremely interested in all that is happening in Malta, and I remain in personal contact with many people, especially at political level because I want to be informed on all that is going on, and intervene where I could give a helping hand.”

Indeed, he is now within the same building that houses Michel Barnier, the commissioner who is leading infringement procedures against the irregular Delimara power station extension procurement, which Brussels claims was against EU competition law.

“All I can say is that the Maltese government has replied to my colleague Michel Barnier, and it is now up to his department to evaluate the replies. It is now a question of either the EU accepting the Maltese government’s explanations, or they could insist that the procurement process be annulled, or impose a fine on Malta or take the nation to court for not following established procedures.”

But his view of the PN today could not be more critical, and his enigmatic replies stir up the old rivalry that existed inside the party. “I believe the PN is in need of a new direction… a climate of apartheid has crept into the party, where today’s leader feels he must have all singing the same tune, which is definitely wrong,” Dalli says, in a direct reference to Gonzi’s style of leadership.

They are bold claims, and he draws the difference between today’s PN and the one led by Eddie Fenech Adami. “We had a party built on diverse opinions, made of people who were free to think, debate, and even contradict, and that is what made the PN stronger and stronger over the years, as its values were consequently strengthened…” 

This, he says, led to an automatic process of clarity in ideas and vision: “an open internal debate created a filter that perfected ideas… but when you have someone who dictates and leaves nobody the space to contradict, as it would mean certain elimination, I say that this is surely not the way to foster a democracy, nor to lead an organization such as the PN.”

Does he see the evolution of the party, manifesting itself even in the government itself?

“It’s an established fact that the party is very influential on government, in the sense that the party in government reflects the vision of the Party, so when that vision starts to become blurred, government’s efficiency is the first to suffer… This is where I believe that in real and immediate terms, we must take stock of the situation and be concrete in addressing the situation and identify where we are doing well and faring badly.”

But Eddie Fenech Adami’s party also left little space for ideological differentiation or personal initiative from MPs. Take the issue of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s private members’ bill on the introduction of divorce: that could have never happened under the stubborn, Catholic direction of Fenech Adami.

“I would opt to separate the issue in two parts: content and method… the method was a ‘bombshell’, because I would have never expected such an initiative during my time, when we were the PN under Eddie Fenech Adami. Because when I explained to you that we had an ongoing and lively internal debate, there was an element of control and discipline.

“But I must say that in our time, we had the space to speak out and express our ideas, and there was never any need to take any extraordinary initiatives… in simple words, we were bonded by absolute loyalty towards each other.

“We may have disagreed between us on certain matters, but we remained friends, we didn’t fight. So if one of us had an idea or a proposal to bring forward, he or she had the space to do it freely within the party and develop it…”

Dalli’s stand on divorce is cautious. He had already declared himself in favour of a “real”, not “emotional” debate on divorce in the country, and not solely on the premise that Malta must have divorce because it exists elsewhere in the world.

But he disagrees with Gonzi’s approach to the matter by saying that divorce will not be decided by parliament but by referendum, as it is “too big an issue for 65 MPs to decide upon…”

“I totally disagree with this. A referendum depends on the question being put forward… I honestly do not think you can place a question on an issue such as divorce, with all its problems aside… and this is why I believe that all MPs who were elected by the people have to assume the responsibility of deciding on this matter.”