Stellini resignation: MPs say Gozo’s Kevin Cutajar should fill seat

Various Nationalist MPs have called for the co-option of Gozitan local councillor Kevin Cutajar to the House of Representatives, in the wake of David Stellini’s resignation.

MP Karol Aquilina said Stellini’s seat should allow the co-option of an MP from Gozo, naming Kevin Cutajar, a lawyer whom he said had never allowed his visual impairment from hindering him in life.

“I’ve know Kevin for 20 years now since we met in our law course. He is a determined person. Selecting Kevin would be a strong message from the PN of its faith in disable people.”

Cutajar was a PN candidate for the 2017 and 2013 general elections, as well as local councillor in Xaghra since 2007.

Aquilina’s status was also shared by Claudette Buttigieg, Beppe Fenech Adami, Karl Gouder, former secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier – who said the PN needed a strong representation in Gozo – and Therese Comodini Cachia.

Claudio Grech said Stellini had given the PN a valuable contribution, and echoing the Gozitan’s concerns, said Maltese politics needed more people who could look at politics from a “modern angle and not from the tribalistic lens”.

Yet on Facebook, various commentors disagreed with Aquilina for putting out the name of Cutajar without the matter having been yet discussed inside the parliamentary group, while others openly supported the co-option of Jean Pierre Debono.

The push for Cutajar presents the PN parliamentary group with a compelling argument to have a Gozitan take up the seat of Gozitan MP David Stellini, and in that way, also scupper the chances of seeing PN leader Adrian Delia push to have Jean Pierre Debono, the former MP who gave up his seat for Delia’s co-option in 2017, back in the House.

The Nationalist MP David Stellini officially resigned his seat in the House of Representatives, to return to his posting with the European People’s Party in Brussels.

In an interview with MaltaToday, the Gozitan MP, who ran for MEP, expressed his dismay at the excessive partisanship of Maltese politics.

“I came from Brussels to Malta in a bid to work for a politics of unity, that can give people results. But there is a group of people who want the politics of the arena... a battle between gladiators,” he said.

“I call it the politics of symbiosis, because the large gladiator needs to have a smaller gladiator to fight against, and the smaller gladiator needs to pick a fight with the large opponent to keep its fans alive: the PN must be careful not to fall into this battle because it will not win it,” Stellini said. “The Maltese system is not conducive to the politics of unity I embrace.”