Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/163731
5 News maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 'I never told Gonzi I would vote against the RCC motion' Former MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando replies to suggestions by Lawrence Gonzi that he betrayed him when he voted for the Opposition in a motion that ousted Richard Cachia Caruana as ambassador to the EU ogy, took issue with claims by former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi that Pullicino Orlando promised him he FORMER Nationalist MP Jeffrey would not vote with the OpposiPullicino Orlando had declined an tion in the 2012 motion that forced invitation from Anne Fenech to give the resignation of chief strategist his opinion to a Nationalist Party and ambassador to the EU Richard commission analysing the causes of Cachia Caruana. "I have a different definition of the 2013 election defeat. But in a reply he gave Fenech on loyalty," Pullicino Orlando said rebeing asked to participate in the ferring to Gonzi's claim that he was commission, Pullicino Orlando – betrayed. "It was disloyal of Cachia whose ousting from the party ticket Caruana to pander to the whims of in 2012 led him to become an inde- foreign powers behind parliament's pendent MP – said it was the threats back – I believe it would have been and insults against him for speaking disloyal of me to condone such behis mind on several issues that led to haviour." Cachia Caruana was accused of his alienation from the party. "I spoke about the reasons that having devised a 'procedural bandwere leading the Nationalist Party aid' in discussions with the United into becoming what will probably be States and NATO officials that alremembered as the most unpopular, lowed Malta to re-enter NATO's arrogant and conservative adminis- Partnership for Peace without the tration ad nauseam for four years. need to seek parliamentary approval The result? Threats, insults and in 2008. The revelations in embassy worse. My family was put through cables published by Wikileaks were hell because I was doing what I felt to used by Labour to force a foreign afbe my duty," Pullicino Orlando told fairs committee that culminated in Fenech in the reply that he showed a parliamentary motion censoring the permanent representative to the to MaltaToday. In comments to this newspaper, EU. "Lawrence obviously disagrees," the former MP, who chairs the Malta Council for Science and Technol- Pullicino Orlando says, referring to the issue of loyalty, "as evidenced by the €240,000 'golden handshake' he gave Cachia Caruana after he was forced to resign. His attempt at trying to depict Cachia Caruana as some form of altruistic martyr by saying that he stayed on as his personal advisor free of charge – after being forced to resign – was cheeky, to say the After being forced to resign, Richard Cachia Caruana least." was paid a handsome €240,000 'golden handshake' Pullicino Or- MATTHEW VELLA lando denies having lied to Gonzi on his intentions to vote for the motion. "I never told him that I was going to vote against the Opposition motion censoring Cachia Caruana. I have always been absolutely honest with him, even when it was difficult for me to do so. Two notable and related examples which come to mind are the Opposition's motion on the Co-Cathedral project and that associated with the honoraria issue. "I was asked by Lawrence, directly, to declare my voting intentions to him, in both cases. I told him that I was going to vote with the Opposition. In the first case I didn't do so because Lawrence stopped the project. In the second he told me that he would call a general election if I supported the Labour honoraria motion. He insisted, even when I asked him whether he was willing to put the country through an election because of a pay rise he had given himself. It was never my intention to disappoint the thousands of Nationalists who gave me their vote by toppling their government of choice, so I was constrained to agree to a compromise." The MP was elected on two districts in 2008 after nearly costing the PN re-election over allegations by Opposition leader Alfred Sant that he had influenced a planning decision to pave the way for the rental of private land in Mistra for the siting of an open-air discotheque. Initially paraded by the party as a martyr of Sant's 'bullying', Pullicino Orlando later claimed he was aware of an internal push by PN strategists to have him resign his parliamentary seat. But his conversion into an open critic of the party's decisions, Pullicino Orlando told Fenech, saw him being "labelled as a traitor and a dissident simply for speaking out about issues such as divorce, the Arriva fiasco, the ARMS debacle, the Co-Cathedral project, the honoraria issue, the St. Philip's Hospital Acquisition issue, the car parks privatisation issue, gay rights and IVF." Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando: "[Lawrence Gonzi] told me that he would call a general election if I supported the Labour honoraria motion" "Servility should never be confused with loyalty," Pullicino Orlando wrote to Anne Fenech in the reply he showed MaltaToday. "I was being loyal to the party and to the people by speaking out, rather than twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the next elections to come around. I was ridiculed for saying that the people were sick and tired of a government hell-bent on choosing form over substance. "Had others taken the difficult step of standing up to be counted, your party would not be in the shambolic state it has been now reduced to. I have wasted enough of my precious time and energy on the Nationalist Party. In fact, I have wasted far too much of it. I would now like to dedicate my energy elsewhere. I am therefore, respectfully, declining your invitation," Pullicino Orlando told Fenech. Speaking to MaltaToday, Pullicino Orlando said he found it interesting to see certain issues all singled out as factors which contributed to the humiliating defeat suffered by the PN at the polls, given that he had "ended up being pilloried for daring to speak" about them. "I still believe Lawrence to be a decent man who was sorely let down by those he chose to surround himself with. I would also like to believe that, in his heart of hearts, he knows who truly betrayed him and the Nationalist Party, leading to a massive swing and reducing the party to a shadow of its former glorious self. And it isn't those of us who stood up to be counted." A very open-minded physicist/mathematician is required for a small but very intriguing research project. Contact 9992 7848.