Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/812895
WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION €1.00 Newspaper post PAGE 9 • Editorial WEDNESDAY • 19 APRIL 2017 • ISSUE 518 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES BIANCHI PAGE 2 Farrugia eying fifth and seventh districts Marlene Farrugia wants to contest fifth and seventh districts on PN ticket JURGEN BALZAN MARLENE Farrugia wants to contest the forthcoming election in the fifth and seventh electoral districts, setting up a possible competition for votes against her partner and current Labour whip Godfrey Farrugia. Farrugia announced her intent in an interview with Saviour Balzan on TVM's Xtra which will be aired tomorrow Thursday. The former Labour MP, whose Democratic Party will be con- testing the general election under the PN banner, said she wants to contest the fifth and seventh dis- tricts, but pointed out that this had not yet been confirmed given that talks with the PN are yet to be concluded. In 2013, Farrugia was elected as a Labour MP on the fifth dis- trict with 2,525 first count votes. She had also contested the sixth district but only managed to earn 358 votes. Now the outspoken Farrugia is eyeing the seventh district, which includes Zebbug, where the MP has a dental clinic and previously served as a PN councillor in the 1990s. It is also the district which elected her partner and current Labour whip Godfrey Farrugia. Attempts to contact Godfrey Farrugia to establish whether he intends to seek re-election and possibly run against his partner were not successful. After militating in Labour, Marlene Farrugia's first formal foray in the political scene came in 1996, when she stood as a can- didate for the Nationalist Party in the local council elections and was successfully elected, serving as a councillor between 1996 and 1999. Muscat denies secret Panama company Egrant belongs to him or his relatives TIM DIACONO PRIME Minister Jospeh Muscat has moved to disassociate himself from rumours that he or one of his relatives is the ultimate ben- eficiary owner of Egrant, the third offshore Panama company that was set up by Nexia BT as revealed in the Panama Papers. Addressing Labour delegates at the party's annual general conference, Muscat admit- ted that he made a mistake by taking too long to disassociate himself from the ru- mour and pledged not to repeat the mistake in the future. "People are now claiming that either my- self, my wife or one of my relatives own a company or bank account outside of Malta," he said. "I assure you now that this is not true." Nexia BT boss Brian Tonna has claimed ownership of Egrant, but the rumour link- ing the company with Muscat has spread in recent days after Malta Independent col- umnist Daphne Caruana Galizia claimed to know the identity of Egrant's owner, in a blogpost accompanied with a picture of the Prime Minister's spouse Michelle Muscat and Leyla Aliyeva, the daughter of Azerbai- jani autocratic leader Ilham Aliyev. The PN has strongly hinted that Muscat owns Egrant and recently released a state- ment claiming that "the only threat to the country is Dr Egrant". He urged Opposition Leader Simon Bu- suttil to keep the upcoming election free of personal attacks against politicians' rela- tives, criticising the PN media for recently publishing pictures of his wife and children. "I urge Simon Busuttil to keep it decent," he said. "Let's keep the politics between our- selves and between different ideas. No mat- ter what others do in the coming months, I pledge that Labour will remain decent." Prime Minister Joseph Muscat (L) called on the opposition to keep electoral campaigning 'decent' Marlene Farrugia