Simply incredible

“Salvu Mallia is doing a good job, especially since he is making politics interesting again.” Simply incredible! These words were said by Simon Busuttil as if in response to the many comments and appeals coming, not from PL people, but from a number of his own parliamentary group, PN media pundits and seriousminded PN voters who have harshly criticised Simon Busuttil’s decision to take on this maverick. And, even more so, for allowing Salvu Mallia to make his own conditions rather than the contrary!

Just imagine if Dr Joseph Muscat had approached Zaren tal-Ajkla and asked him to contest on behalf of the PL, and Zaren accepted but on certain conditions, which Dr Muscat accepted? Using Simon Busuttil’s own yardstick – “making politics interesting again" – Zaren tal-Ajkla is far ahead of Salvu Mallia. His “mass-meetings” attracted many hundreds, if not thousands. Salvu Mallia’s first appeal to voters to turn up at Castille Square to his one-man protest, attracted only a few journalists and around six elderly men, a couple of whom chided the new PN candidate ‘star’!

But what this Salvu Mallia episode clearly shows is that the Opposition leader gravely lacks political acumen. He has become an embarrassment to those PN supporters who always believed that the PN was a “confessional” party which appeals also to university-educated voters, the middle and upper classes, as well as the business community. Instead, today’s PN has been changed to a party which is ready to forget its principles and values, and accept anything and anybody in its quest to try to grab power once again. It is quite obvious that those who believe in extremist politics have taken over the PN. ■ Eddy Privitera Mosta