Malta’s newest ‘church’ party awash with River of Love adherents

A bulk of candidates in Malta’s newest right-wing Christian conservative party hail from the River Of Love evangelical community as well as from a far-right group.

The alliance with conservative TV pundit Ivan Grech Mintoff has seen members of pastor Gordon John Manché’s River Of Love throw their hat into the political ring to join Abba, a pro-life formation that has protested against Malta’s embryo freezing laws, Malta’s equality bill, which has remained on the backburner, as well as COVID-19 restrictions.

The party is led by Ivan Grech Mintoff, who led anti-vaxxer protests over the course of 2021 and 2022.

Ivan Grech Mintoff

Members from River of Love include ex-gay campaigner Matthew Grech, who in the past declared that voting for Labour was a sin because it gives “women the right to kill their unborn children, they legalized homosexual ‘marriage’, they brought in the abortive ‘morning-after’ pill...”

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Another River Of Love member and Abba candidate is Stevey Ellul Bonici, the son of former Labour MEP candidate Sharon Ellul Bonici, who was still granted a front seat during Labour’s 2017 election victory despite working as secretary-general of the far-right European Alliance for Freedom. His father Kevin Ellul Bonici was a staff member of Brexiteer Nigel Farage’s Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy.

Other River of Love members include John Mark Attard, ex-gay activist Rebecca Paris (who claims she slighted a Satanist woman and experienced a ‘supernatural encounter’), and Romina Magro.

River of Love pastor Gordon John Manché has claimed that government COVID restrictions against the unvaccinated are part of a global conspiracy that is heralding “the mark of the Beast” – or allegiance to the antichrist. Controversial as an American-style evangelist who believes Donald Trump was “breaking the build-up to the new world order”, Manché is not contesting the election.

Former far-right candidate Simon Elmer, who campaigned with Moviment Patrijotti, is now an Abba candidate.

Among other candidates are Radu Gheorghe, who shared online many Freedom Convoy messages as well as posters for anti-vaxxer marches in Malta.

Another candidate is Antoine Daccache, who has shared on his Facebook profile, Holocaust denier Norman Lowell’s vlog on the Russian invasion (scroll further down the YouTube page to see Lowell greet followers with a fascist ‘Ave’ salute); news of Donald Trump’s new ‘Truth’ app; as well as ‘Jewish global order’ conspiracies: “Both the Ukrainian president and prime minister are Jewish... Zelenskyy’s grandparents died in the Holocaust... Which famous bankers have been right at the top of Nato and America since the very beginning? Some pieces are forming a puzzle, piece by piece...”