Former MP hits out at ‘Austin Gatt’ candidate and PN administration

Former Nationalist MP Jean-Pierre Farrugia has published a series of accusations that hint at Nationalist MP Claudio Grech as having been unfairly propped up by the party's administration to be elected to the House.

Farrugia lost his seat in the House, where he used to be elected from the first district, after newcomer Claudio Grech was elected.

Specifically, Farrugia took to his Facebook wall to hit at out an unnamed candidate - but the reference leaves no doubt as to the candidate being newly-elected MP Claudio Grech - over irregular campaigning practices.

In his posts Farrugia complained that Nationalist Party employees were "more focused on electing the 'Aust/A.G.' candidate than the party's interests", a reference to Austin Gatt using the appellation from the controversial emails of oil trader George Farrugia when referring to meetings he held over the privatisation of the Mediterranean Oil Bunkering Corporation.

Claudio Grech, who was Gatt's former head of secretariat, contested on the first district from where Gatt customarily ran before calling it a day.

Farrugia also complained that Grech's registered address in a garage located on 80, St Paul's Street, Valletta was also the same registered address of five other persons (Borg, Cachia, Cauchi, Law, Pace and Schembri) "with the approval of the PN's administration" - a serious accusation suggests that six voters were placed on the same address as Grech's to enable to vote on the first district.

"I have been informed since summer that specific meetings were organised to threaten Malta Freeport and Transport Malta workers to work for whom Al Capone wanted," Farrguia said in a third Facebook post, without saying to whom the 'gangster' reference applied.

Farrugia announced his withdrawal from active politics on his Facebook profile last week. His parting shot was an email he published on Facebook, which he had sent to Gonzi in 2010. The message had been leaked to the press and published by MaltaToday by MPs copied in the email, which warning Farrugia today claimed should have been heeded in a bid to save the PN from the humiliating defeat in which 36,000 voters swayed to Labour.

In the email, Farrugia had warned Gonzi that: "losing heavily at the polls in three years could result in serious infighting leaving the PN in shambles. This happened in Italy and as I see it there is nothing to stop it from happening to us. Your responsibility does not stop at the state. Nor at this generation. You need a stronger team around you to start picking up the pieces immediately, re-strengthening our roots and outreaching to rebuild again."

In his Facebook message, Farrugia also said that he could not identify himself with the PN's "contemporary modus operandi" while stating that he had "no difficulty in identifying with the PN's glorious past."

"[The PN's] contemporary modus operandi extinguished all my will to keep struggling for equity so that nobody gets left behind."

Jean-Pierre Farrugia had broken ranks with the majority of MPs who were to pocket a substantial €7,000 increase in their honoraria, by announcing he will donate the salary raise to the Stefano Borgonovo Foundation for research on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a condition from which his wife suffers. 

Farrugia had also said it was a shame for 'GonziPN' to approve a €500 increase per week in salary.