Marlene Farrugia warns Labourites: ‘Panama gang’ out to scupper Chris Fearne’s leadership bid

She is a Democratic Party MP but Marlene Farrugia has cautioned her former Labour associates to beware of internal attempts to undermine Chris Fearne’s leadership bid.

In a Facebook post on Monday, Farrugia predicted that in the coming months Fearne would increasingly become a target for the “Panama gang”, ostensibly a reference to Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri.

“Mark my words, that in the coming months the health sector will be riddled with bullets from the undercover loaded bazookas kept ready by the Panama gang in all the media houses. They will try to destroy Fearne’s chances to give the PL back to the people by taking the PL leadership,” Farrugia wrote.

She also urged Labour supporters to remember who sold the hospitals concession in a “shameful deal”, with obvious reference to Mizzi, who was health minister responsible for the transfer of three State hospitals to Vitals Global Healthcare, a company with no track record in the medical field.

The company, eventually failed to live up to its side of the deal and sold out to American outfit Steward Healthcare, which Fearne later described as the “real deal”.

“It was not Fearne who signed those deals,” Farrugia said, adding it was “the other leadership contenders with the blessing or the silence of the Labour Parliamentary group”, who did.

Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne

She then urged Labour supporters to stand up and take the party back into their hands.

Farrugia, a former Labour MP, fell out with the party in November 2015, holding on to her seat as an independent. She went on to form the Democratic Party and contested the last election in coalition with the Nationalist Party.

She was returned to Parliament along with her partner and current PD leader Godfrey Farrugia.

This is not the first time Farrugia has attempted dishing out advice to rival parties with her most bizarre comment being just after the 2017 election when she floated the possibility of contesting the PN leadership, while in command of the PD.