Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1464865
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 APRIL 2022 NEWS BOTH elected to parliament in every legislature since 1998, Edwin Vassallo (who was first elected in 1996) and Jason Az- zopardi were among the most vocal party voices against the introduction of divorce in Malta before the watershed referen- dum of 2011. The referendum opened the floodgates for subsequent liber- al reforms but Vassallo and Az- zopardi, alongside former party leader Lawrence Gonzi, had de- fied the referendum result and voted against the divorce bill, which was approved by parlia- ment in 2011. Both formed part of Gonzi's Cabinet. The similarities stop here. Azzopardi relentlessly worked to unseat Adrian Delia from leader, while Vassallo, who had initially supported Chris Said in the leadership contest, remained loyal to the leader. Vassallo may have been emboldened by Delia's references to 'religio et patria' and his hardline stance against the ratification of the Is- tanbul Convention on domestic violence on the flimsy grounds that it excluded a reference to the unborn child; in July 2020, Vassallo even invited MPs "dis- loyal" to leader Adrian Delia to resign from the party, saying they "no longer belong". Authenticity and toxic bananas While increasingly anachro- nistic, Vassallo's shopkeeper mentality gave him a lack of sophistication that ironical- ly brought him the allure of a man of the people, a marked distinction in a party of lawyers. Consistent to the end, even af- ter failing to get elected, Vassal- lo reaffirmed his loyalty to the party while adding that his "first loyalty is towards his faith." Yet his brand of 'authenticity' was a reminder of the exclusion- ary politics which made his par- ty toxic for many voters. Even in his profession of faith, his main concern remained abor- tion, rarely ever giving voice to other Christian concerns like the treatment of migrants. His stance on hunting was anything but Franciscan, but only politi- cally convenient. Not surprisingly, in 2004 Vas- sallo had been one of two MPs (the other being Rabat notary Tony Abela) to have chosen John Dalli – a self-made ac- countant with sprawling busi- ness interests – over Lawrence Gonzi, a lawyer hailing from the heart of the traditional estab- lishment. After Gonzi's victory, Vassallo was still entrusted with the par- liamentary secretariat for small businesses. His pearls of wis- dom then included an address to parliament's social affairs committee, where he warned that "what happens in the bed- room often ends up before the State to do something about it", citing single parents and teen- age pregnancies as examples of the problems created inside the unsupervised bed. His charm could be illustrated by his proud tradition to con- struct a brand new Christmas nativity crib every year in his Mosta home, starting work as early as August, with all figu- rines being hand-made. And in many ways his vision was that of keeping Malta a crib: "Political parties are not shops without a philosophy… the Nationalist Party knows what its philoso- phy is, but it must make a clear statement that it still upholds the values which shaped it," he had told MaltaToday in an in- terview right before the divorce referendum. He plodded on the conserva- tive path as the country marched in the opposite direction, clash- ing with Simon Busuttil in his final days as party leader by going on the history books as the only MP to vote against gay marriage. But in the world of viral social media, Vassallo's outbursts be- came more embarrassing, noto- riously so when he shared a post about 'satanic' bananas infected by HIV-infected blood – some- thing which he apologised for but which opened him up to ridicule. Jason Azzopardi's crusade In contrast, the equally con- servative Jason Azzopardi found new battles to fight, reinventing himself as a relentless anti-cor- ruption crusader and later as the foremost critic of former PN leader Adrian Delia whom he regarded as Labour's 'Trojan horse' even before he was elect- ed PN leader. As lawyer to the Caruana Gal- izia family, he had access to damning information, titbits of which he often prematurely shared on Facebook or in Par- liament, only to be partly vin- dicated later but at the cost of sounding divisive and spiteful. With the impression that he rel- ished his role as self-appointed prophet, even after being voted out he could not but restate his confidence in his vindication by the outcomes of magisterial inquiries into the corruption of Labour figures. Despite partly vindicated by revelations on the cover-up of the Caruana Galizia assassina- tion, including his explosive claim that the murder suspects had been tipped off before the Marsa police raid, his sancti- monious approach made him an easy target of the Labour propaganda machine, riding on his inconsistencies to divert at- tention from far more serious accusations against the Muscat era's top brass. Azzopardi's sanctimonious, self-righteous tone contrasted with a Maltese culture epito- mised by the expression "biex tiskonġra trid tkun pur" (only the pure can condemn others) – a maxim seemingly designed to silence 99% of the population. But some of Azzopardi's in- consistencies were too glaring and sensational not to notice. One was his Tel Aviv hotel free- bie paid by the Tumas Group's Ray Fenech in July 2017. Or while lambasting Labour's pow- er of incumbency, as minister he signed the expropriation of land at Fekruna in a government land swap on the eve of the 2013 general election. Popular revulsion at his ways In the process of electing 17 new MPs, the Nationalist Party lost two of its most iconic figures: an ultra-conservative shopkeeper, and a sanctimonious lawyer who reinvented himself as the PN's fire-and-brimstone anti-corruption crusader. JAMES DEBONO explores their legacy Edwin and Jason: End of the road for two PN archetypes JAMES DEBONO Vassallo's shopkeeper mentality gave him a lack of sophistication that ironically brought him the allure of a man of the people, a marked distinction in a party of lawyers