Mistra and the aftermath

James Debono (MaltaToday 22 June) gave an excellent account of the Mistra disco affair and its aftermath. There is still room for some comment, however.

The 5,131 first preference votes gathered by JPO from two constituencies should have been compared with the overall 1,583 first-preference majority - a mere half-quota - of the PN in the 2008 election. The actual figures put latter-day assertions, made by Beppe Fenech Adami among others, that JPO did not really carry the day for the PN, in their proper place: a pigeonhole labelled "in denial".

This newly-found respect for principled politics sits ill on the shoulders of beneficiaries of the original dastardly deed.

The legal area of "charges of trading in influence" is a veritable quicksand. In fact only the MEPA DCC A board members were acquitted of that charge, and even here no one knows if the Attorney General (AG) has in fact lodged an appeal.

A suggestion to that effect made by Saviour Balzan led to a ferocious response from the AG. But the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) official George Micallef is still in court, charged with making a false report.

The "criminal proceedings" referred to by Dr Gonzi as the reason for leaving JPO out in the cold, were NOT against JPO, but against two members of the MEPA DCC A board. In fact it emerged from the court proceedings that Azzopardi and Mifsud were just two fall guys with no real "influence" to peddle. If anybody "traded any influence" it was the MEPA Liason Officer (LO).

In the absence of any documented evidence (as far as MEPA was concerned) that JPO was connected with the project or the developer, the LO informed JPO of the date and venue of the "developer-DCC" meeting, admitted him into the meeting and allowed him to intervene in the discussion: JPO was reported in court to have urged the DCC board members, who were too scared to ask what he was doing there, to "make up their mind quickly". That looks like a clear case of furthering "Interessi private in atti d'ufficio" by the LO.

As for the other case which is still sub judice, George Micallef of the MTA is accused of having drawn up "a false report" on the Mistra Disco. As James Debono pointed out, the MTA (George Micallef in person) had already drawn up a report which "was favourable to the application".

For reasons unknown, on a later occasion Micallef was hustled by JPO to draw up another report. Being pressed for time as he was on the verge of an overseas trip, Micallef used his first report as a basis for his second one. For this he stands accused of having drawn up 'a false report' by the police, who never even looked at his first report.

To turn to James Debono's last words: This raises the question on whether Mistra still binds the fortunes of the embattled Prime Minister and the bitter backbencher. One must not forget that Dr Gonzi did generously provide €13,000 p.a. of taxpayers' money to assuage JPO's "bitterness". That apart, "Mistra" does indeed bind those two in a fatal embrace. Going by previous (to 2008) and subsequent evidence, there is no way any "PN official" could have passed on a copy of the Mistra contract to the PL without Dr Gonzi (a great practitioner of Nixonian "deniability") knowing about it.

All that talk, subsequent to the election, of JPO doing "the honourable thing" and resigning - an act which would NOT have changed the election result, of course - and the alacrity with which Dr. Gonzi washed his hands of JPO, point in the same direction.

So Dr Gonzi, permanent representatives, poisonous bloggers and JPO thoroughly deserve each other. To me the really inexplicable fact is why the PL, led by that 'young and admirable politician' (Eddy Privitera's accolade) chose to hitch a ride on such a knackered donkey. It makes one suspect that this 'new way of doing politics' is just another version of the old smelly red herring after all.