PN turns guns on Labour campaign manager

The Nationalist Party issued a scathing 'exposé' of Labour leader Joseph Muscat's campaign manager in its media, by calling into question his business interests.

PN secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier today said the PN media "had uncovered" the face behind the Labour campaign - Keith Schembri - a person who has been widely associated with Muscat since his election to the party helm in 2008.

A low-profile character, Schembri's role behind the desk has been to carve out Labour's campaign strategy together with Labour's chief executive officer James Piscopo and communications coordinator Kurt Farrugia.

But Borg Olivier has insisted that Muscat should explain "what his relationship is with this businessman who runs the fourth floor" - a reference to the offices where Labour runs its campaign from at the Mile End headquarters.

Schembri, 38, is a director of his family business Kasco, paper merchants who have extended their group of companies into the graphic art industry, waste recycling, foodstuffs, and other industrial supplies.

The PN's slow build-up to giving a face to the ideas-man behind the Labour campaign has long been coming, since Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi made reference to the hallowed 'fourth floor' at the Labour headquarters, where the party's campaign nerve-centre is located.

Equally, the Nationalist Party's own campaign and strategy team members include the former secretary-general Joe Saliba, a director of two subsidiaries from the Vassallo Builders Group of PN donor Nazzareno Vassallo.