Siggiewi mayor, PL deputy leader diffuse potentially explosive situation in club feud

In a joint effort to quell a potentially explosive situation, Musumeci and Labour deputy leader for party affairs Toni Abela agreed on using another building, adjacent to the local council, for the new PL club on a 5-year temporary lease.

The original offer for the local council premises meant it would only be available for one year. While the council would move into the premises that until this month housed the Labour club, the PL's Siggiewi committee would use the present local council premises.

The Siggiewi Labour club members were informed by Toni Abela that they had no choice but to relinquish the premises, after Siggiewi’s deputy mayor Karol Aquilina first presented a council resolution, in July 2009, to ask government to devolve the property.

Angered by Aquilina’s resolution to force their eviction, the PL members had no alternative premises at hand and seemed intent not to vacate the building. Sources said Toni Abela mediated and convinced the members to accept the new premises that was offered to them by mayor Robert Musumeci.

The club, in St Nicholas square, was a private residence requisitioned by the Nationalist government, which had turned it into a civic centre in the 1960s. When the property fell into disuse, a Labour government transferred it to the Labour party to use as a party club, on the eve of the 1981 general elections.

The government has already accepted the council’s request to use the premises as its administrative centre and turn it into a daycare centre for the elderly. Labour filed a judicial protest claiming Karol Aquilina’s proposal was discriminatory and a breach of human rights.

In a letter he wrote to the Opposition leader, Karol Aquilina said Labour “surely knows it is legally and morally in the wrong.” He said Labour’s attempt to keep the property was abusive and was “unworthy of a party that claims to believe in a strong democracy and in full respect of the law… It wouldn’t be much of a good example to society if Labour illegally occupies a historical property."