Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1190498
KARL AZZOPARDI AN attempt at orchestrat- ing a swifter transition of power to 'heir appar- ent' Chris Fearne (left) was spiked yester- day when Labour MP Robert Ab- ela announced he would be con- testing the La- bour leadership. In a telling Fa- cebook post three days earlier, Abela – son of President emeritus George Abela, a former La- bour deputy leader who resigned during the Sant administration and later ran, unsuccessfully, against Joseph Muscat in 2008 – gave notice he would not let Labour's next leader take the prize without a con- test. Abela, 42, was rumoured to have been gun- ning for the post of deputy prime minister under Fearne, 56, who is also health minister. JOSEPH Muscat's terms of depar- ture have been welcomed by 43.2% of people polled in a Mal- taToday survey that asked wheth- er they agreed with the Prime Minister's decision to step down in January. But 56.8% have disagreed with Muscat's decision. When asked what alter- native course of action the Prime Minister should have taken, just over a quarter (26.4%) of these believed Muscat should have carried on with his mandate, and a slightly larger cohort (27.3%) wanted him to resign imme- diately and have his deputy Chris Fearne serve as acting prime minister. Almost half (46.3%) of those who did not agree with Muscat's deci- sion, were howev- er, unable to say what course of action the Prime Minister should have taken. Half of Labour voters (50.3%) who did not agree with Muscat's deci- sion believed he should have carried on with his man- date, while 7.5% felt that he should have resigned im- mediately. The rest (42.2%) could not say what should have happened. Nationalist voters who dis- agreed with the Prime Min- ister's terms of departure, were less forgiving. Of these, half (50.6%) expected him to resign immediately and have Chris Fearne appointed act- ing prime minister. 2 ing prime PGS 8-9 SUNDAY • 8 DECEMBER 2019 • ISSUE 1049 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF BOLD JOURNALISM WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT/20YEARS €1.95 Abela, Fearne bid for PM job INSIDE • MT2 maltatoday 2 INSIDE • LISTINGS • TV • LAW • CLASSIFIEDS Q & A John Montanaro This Week Author Paul Bartolo Film The Irishman Labour leadership Forgive me... Father? Amid his troubles at home, beleaguered PM Joseph Muscat visits Pontiff CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF BOLD JOURNALISM WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT/20YEARS It's beginning to taste like Christmas! Gourmet Today FREE FREE Think Magazine MALTATODAY SURVEY People agree: Muscat must go (left) was spiked yester- day when Labour MP Robert Ab- ela announced he would be con- In a telling Fa- cebook post three days earlier, Abela – son of President emeritus George Abela, a former La- bour deputy leader mt survey PAGE 3 Schembri questioned FORMER chief-of-staff Keith Schembri was yes- terday interrogated by police over a no-show job with a government agency he gave to Melvin Theuma, the middleman in the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination turned State's evidence against mastermind Yor- gen Fenech. Theuma has also claimed Schembri leaked information from the police investigation to his friend Fenech, the Electrogas shareholder and owner of 17 Black. SUNDAY • 8 DECEMBER 2019 • ISSUE 1049 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF BOLD JOURNALISM WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT/20YEARS maltatoday NATIONALIST Party leader Adrian Delia was yesterday confronted by party heavyweights Clau- dio Grech, Beppe Fenech Adami and Mario de Marco that the PN was "nowhere to be seen" and that it was "rendering it- self unelectable". Delia yesterday called an urgent parliamentary group and executive com- mittee meeting that first started off with a debate on a good governance policy paper he launched yesterday. But his speech was in- terrupted by angry speak- ers who told Delia the party's absence from the civil society-led protests was making the PN irrel- evant. Restless MPs confront Delia over 'PN's absence' PAGE 5 After Joseph, will Labour lose the gel that kept it together? PAGES 6-7 of to taste like malta SVEN GIEGOLD The German MEP on Malta's rule of law crisis PGS 16-17