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John Dalli's aims to stand for national elections next time round
European Commissioner John Dalli's hopes at a shot at the next general election stay alive.
Former Nationalist minister and leadership aspirant John Dalli hopes for re-election in the Maltese parliament in 2013, as a bid to contest the elections without having to resign his Brussels post has not been ruled out.
Dalli would only have to resign his €200,000 a year post if re-elected, sister newspaper Illum reports.
Dalli may be still hoping to be in a position to clinch the party leadership should Lawrence Gonzi fail to take the PN to a fourth consecutive victory.
Relations are even more sour between the two rivals. Dalli recently made his harshest criticism of his party to date, when he declared on Radju Malta that the situation inside the Nationalist Party was worse than it was when he was “pushed out of Cabinet.”
Referring to his resignation in 2004, when a private investigator handed the Prime Minister a report falsely accusing Dalli, then a minister, of receiving kickbacks on a hospital tender, Dalli complained that “nobody had taken responsibility for [his] sacking from Cabinet.”
Asked what sort of responsibility he was expecting to be taken, Dalli said: “It’s political… political responsibility must be shouldered by the prime minister.”
Dalli’s ‘forced resignation’ as he had termed it came in the wake of a bitter leadership contest that saw him lose heavily to Lawrence Gonzi. After his resignation, he spent three years as a backbencher and then appointed as advisor to Gonzi right before the 2008 general elections.
“I don’t like the state the PN is in at all,” he said when asked about the health of his party, of late under renewed criticism by its own MPs. “I see a wide gap between the PN as we had formed it, and the party it is today. I am seeing many PN activists disenchanted with the party.”
Maureen Attard •
If Mr Dalli will be the new leader of the PN, I will vote again for the PN. But if Dr Gonzi will be the leader I wow'nt vote PN. There are other alternatives. I don't believe anymore in Gonzipn.
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Dalli will have his revenge yet. God help the rest of us - caught between Gonzi and Dalli. Really a case of from the fire into the frying pan for us Maltese.
Alfred Galea •
Opportunism at its best....Avarice.
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Hallina Kummissarju Ewropej JOHN DALLI insejt kid Dr Gonzi ghaddik MIN GHAJN IL LABRA u DAHAQ BIK fl-ahhar elezjoni li ghaddiet biex JISSERFA BIK GHAMLEK TAPARSI KUNSULENT tieghu (Gonzi) u INT IL LIXKA BLAJTA Issa l-ghasfur HARABLEK INT taf kemm ghandek ghad ghedwwa KONTRIK hawn Malta bizzejjed taf min xiex ghaddejt meta inholqot dik il HRAFA kontrik. Barra min HEKK issa ma tantx ghadek POPOLARI go Hal QORMI U HAZ ZEBBUG wara dak li ghamilt kontra l-EX HADDIEMA TAX XATT fuq ir riforma li saret 3 snien ilu u li int wedt lil ex haddiema tax xatt li kellhom trid jiehdi il flus pero INT QATT MA FTAHT HALQRK GHALIHOM ISSA POSSIBLI GHANDEK IL WICC TOST TIDHER QUDDIEMHOM ( EX PW)
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Dalli is talking a lot of sense. Through such unrestrained tirades Gonzi emerges as a massive loser, really not knowing whether he's coming or going as evinced by current pictures of him in the media. Thanks to Dalli's intrepid forays in the political scene where Gonzi had elbowed him out, Gonzi's inadequacy is being increasingly and glaringly obvious to all, particularly the electorate. The latter is of course the crucial aspect of it all. After winning in a "rigged" contest (the highly manipulated leadership election) Gonzi made matters worse by basing the Dalli ouster on a false report (the perpetrator of which was actually jailed for the crime), now he has to face the consequences: the return of an angry rival who can wield much more clout than he previously possessed by virtue of several developments beyond Gonzi's control. Chief among these one would list the divorce debacle with JPO, the ministerial pay raise and, needless to say, the clumsy way in which Gonzi unleashed devastating taxes and utility bills on an already suffering nation. The moment of reckoning is fast approaching for this mediocre, incompetent man who had, up to now, managed to befuddle the public with apparent eloquence and ability to manipulate information, but now stands to compete with the king who was shown to be naked.
