PN braces itself for Pullicino Orlando departure

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi today meets rebel MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and European Commissioner John Dalli in what is set to be a red-letter day for the Nationalist Party.

The PN is bracing itself for the possible exit of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, whose bid to have the party's chief strategist Richard Cachia Caruana expelled was expectedly turned down by the PN executive committee's unanimous vote.

The MP was banned from contesting the next elections on the PN ticket after voting for an Opposition motion that forced the resignation of Cachia Caruana from permanent representative to the EU.

Gonzi's former leadership rival John Dalli will also be meeting the prime minister, in a bid to hand him names of PN officials whom he claims worked against him by passing on information to the Labour party.

Adding more flavour to what is going to be a day of political spin are new PN revelations that accuse Opposition leader Joseph Muscat of having been the source of information that Alfred Sant was going to attack Pullicino Orlando on the 2008 Mistra permit, which had nearly cost the PN its re-election.

Yesterday, Nationalist MPs Francis Zammit and Beppe Fenech Adami declared Muscat was the source of information that prepared the PN for the Mistra onslaught.

On its part, the Nationalist Party has so far refused to chastise Pullicino Orlando for his role in in the party's internal, albeit contrived, trial of Cachia Caruana.

Instead the PN blamed Joseph Muscat for orchestrating a 'political frame-up', after two Labour MPs called in as witnesses by Pullicino Orlando to substantiate his accusations of collusion against Cachia Caruana publicly stated their own recollections of meeting or dealing with the former ambassador. Cachia Caruana has filed a criminal slander suit against Labour whip Joe Mizzi for implicating him in a botched drugs raid aboard the yacht.

Adding to this soup are declarations by the Prime Minister's communications chief Gordon Pisani that in 2008, Pullicino Orlando was economical with the truth on his involvement in the Mistra scandal, when he did not reveal he had rented out the land for an open-air disco. As Labour leader Alfred Sant accused him of using his influence to gain planning permits for the disco, Pullicino Orlando chose to deny even knowing the applicant for the discotheque, when it turned out he had in fact negotiated a rental agreement with him.

On Tuesday, as the PN executive met to vote on Pullicino Orlando's accusations, Labour issued a secret recording of Cachia Caruana speaking about the 1994 assassination on his life, in which he is heard complaining that former deputy prime minister Guido de Marco had fomented the resentment against him by the family of Brigadier Maurice Calleja. Calleja had resigned in 1993 after his on Meinrad was convicted on drug trafficking charges; Meinrad Calleja was later charged with commissioning the assassination attempt against Cachia Caruana but acquitted in 2004.