Fearing he will be made Gonzi’s scapegoat, Franco Debono mulls abstention

Nationalist MP Franco Debono is basking in the limelight as the Maltese parliament's enfant terrible, but privately he has admitted he is not willing to take the nation into early elections.

For the past five months, Debono has kept the country and his party - with whom he appears to have broken ranks by repeatedly calling for Lawrence Gonzi's resignation - guessing over whether he intends voting against a money bill on 9 May that could precipitate early elections.

The odds appear to be strongly against him voting against the Budget Measures Appropriation Bill, and that he is more likely to abstain - allowing the Speaker of the House to keep Gonzi on life-support with his casting vote.

Confidants who spoke to MaltaToday say the 38-year-old MP, whose ambitions to become justice minister were thwarted in the last cabinet reshuffle back in January, has told them he will not have Gonzi parade him as the man responsible for early elections.

One source expressly said Debono "intends abstaining", another said the MP said he does not want to be "Gonzi's scapegoat".

Earlier today, Debono was spotted at Café Cordina in Valletta engrossed in conversation: a copy of MaltaToday's 'Midweek' edition on the bar's counter had former prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami splashed over the front page, calling on the PN to call Debono's bluff and forge ahead with its business.

But the MP has refused to even comment on Fenech Adami's statement, when contacted later this afternoon by MaltaToday: "I have not read what Eddie Fenech Adami said and I will not read it. I have absolutely nothing to say."

When pressed to comment on how he intends to vote on 9 May, Debono hurriedly replied: "I have nothing to say on that either."

Since Gonzi decided to test Debono's claims that he will withdraw his support from government, the MP has retorted by demanding that the House debates the motions on justice and home affairs that he and the Opposition tabled (Debono's motion calls on the House to approve 22 proposals but has been given little media attention, while Labour's is a motion of censure against home affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici, formerly also justice minister).

Now government and Opposition are locked in a battle inside the House Business Committee on the timing to debate Labour's justice and home affairs motion, and another motion that calls for the resignation of Richard Cachia Caruana, the permanent representative of the EU.

A compromise date for 23 May proposed by Speaker Michael Frendo may be agreed upon in tonight's (Wednesday) committee meeting, where Leader of the House Carm Mifsud Bonnici has had to take a back seat while his predecessor, deputy prime minister Tonio Borg taking the lead.

Earlier today, MaltaToday Midweek reported comments by Eddie Fenech Adami advising Nationalist leader Lawrence Gonzi to call Franco Debono's bluff. "The sooner that individual's bluff is called, the better."

Fenech Adami, who also occupied the role of Opposition leader in 1998, had seen a similar backbencher revolt spell the untimely end to the 22-month-old Labour government under Alfred Sant. "I have always been against any form of appeasement policy," Fenech Adami said when asked what he thought of government's attempts to 'rein in' maverick backbencher Franco Debono. "Appeasement never solves any problems... The situation at present is what it is. We have heard a lot of talk, but until a vote is actually taken against the government, there is no reason for government not to keep implementing its programme."

MORE Eddie Fenech Adami: 'The sooner they call Franco Debono's bluff, the better'