‘A mafioso’s revenge’, Cachia Caruana on Pullicino Orlando’s vote

Malta's outgoing permanent representative to the European Union has delivered a scathing verdict of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando's vote to support the Opposition motion that led to his resignation, describing the Nationalist MP as a "Sicilian... the sort you would [not] want to do business with."

His contemptuous description fell just short of the word 'mafioso', as Cachia Caruana told the Sunday Times that Pullicino Orlando had used his parliamentary seat to exact a personal revenge on him, and not because of his role in reactivating Malta's participation in Partnership for Peace.

"You do not adopt Mintoffian vindictiveness unless you want to cause harm, on a personal basis to an individual... which implies revenge of some sort."

Cachia Caruana has insisted that his role in fomenting an underhand and unofficial media campaign to prompt Pullicino Orlando to resign his parliamentary seat after the 2008 Mistra scandal that nearly cost the Nationalists their re-election, was "absolutely false".

On TVM's Dissett on Saturday evening, Pullicino Orlando denied claims that his motives were inspired by revenge, but he was equally clear in saying that Cachia Caruana's role in coaching him throughout the 2008 electoral campaign, and his alleged attempt to make him his resign his seat afterwards, "was a direct attack on democracy" - and equated this style of operation with Cachia Caruana's role in arguing for the reactivation of PfP without having to seek the House's approval.

The permanent representative, who leaves Brussels in July, also claimed Pullicino Orlando deceived him when he gave him the impression, during a 5 June meeting at the MP's house, that he would not vote against him.

But it was clear that Cachia Caruana was apprehensive about Pullicino Orlando's intentions. "When I saw him [at the foreign affairs committee] I thought there was a problem, so a few days later I messages him to ask if we could meet... I left with the impression - which I was obviously meant to receive - that there was no problem."

Cachia Caruana had to testify before the foreign affairs committee about his role in reactivating PfP, where he claimed that he was not aware of the Prime Minister's intention to reactivate PfP before the 2008 election, when parliament was still in dissolution. He also testified he was not aware that Lawrence Gonzi had already informed then US ambassador Molly Bordonaro in January 2008 that he would reactivate PfP if he wins the election. This represents one of Cachia Caruana's boldest claims, given that he was since 2004 directly involved in talks over Nato classified information that was not available to EU member states who were neither Nato nor PfP members.

But Pullicino Orlando's vote in parliament in a subsequent motion presented by the Opposition, where he accused Cachia Caruana of authoring an unofficial campaign to make him resign, led to the permanent representative's ousting. "What I can never accept is the vile way he tried to make me resign my seat," Pullicino Orlando said on Dissett.

"It was an attack on democracy. Cachia Caruana's plan was to use me to win the PN's election in 2008, coaching me every step of the way in confronting Alfred Sant who made vile and incorrect accusations against me. So successful was this plan, that I became too popular [Pullicino Orlando was elected on both constituencies despite the suspicions levied against him by Sant]...

"The next day the PN won, they started spreading the word that I had lied... this was an attack on democracy, which shows Cachia Caruana's disrespect having instigated this attack."

But Cachia Caruana, whose role in coaching Pullicino Orlando in 2008 was to set him up as an 'innocent' victim at the hands of the 'bullying' Alfred Sant, conjures up regrets about the MP he once describedin 2009 "as a much-valued political colleague."

"I had to persuade the electorate that an innocent person was being unfairly attacked," Cachia Caruana said of Pullicino Orlando, whose rental of his private land in Mistra for the construction of an open-air disco, risked harming the party's environmental credentials and opened him up to accusation of having influenced a MEPA decision to grant the permit when it had been recommended for refusal.

"We were caught in a situation where we trusted somebody who, even if he didn't lie, didn't tell the whole truth either - and this misled people.

"I regret to say Alfred Sant probably summed him up correctly."

Cachia Caruana also praised one of the columnists whom Pullicino Orlando claims does his bidding in an unofficial campaign to attack party critics. "I admire her for having the guts to say what she thinks and express herself so eloquently," Cachia Caruana said of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Malta Independent columnist panned by critics and MPs who say her poison-pen blogs are the PN's unofficial media.

Cachia Caruana in fact says the damage caused by Caruana Galizia's blogs has been caused "by the interpretation of people who are unable to understand that as politicians they have to be able to take the rough with the smooth."