Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/832512
16 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 JUNE 2017 News QUOTA Name Party 1 2 3 CARUANA Luke AD ___________________________ BONNICI Nazzareno IND ___________________________ FLORIAN Stephen MPM ___________________________ PISANI Alex MPM ___________________________ CAMILLERI Clint PL ___________________________ CAMILLERI George PL ___________________________ CARUANA Justyne PL ___________________________ CORDINA Joe PL ___________________________ MERCIECA Franco PL ___________________________ REFALO Anton PL ___________________________ AZZOPARDI Frederick PN ___________________________ CUTAJAR Kevin PN ___________________________ ELLIS Joseph PN ___________________________ GALEA Vincent [Censu] PN ___________________________ MERCIECA Ryan PN ___________________________ POLIDANO Carmel [Charles] PN ___________________________ PORTELLI Maria PN ___________________________ PORTELLI Marthese PN ___________________________ SAID Chris PN ___________________________ STELLINI David PN ___________________________ ZAMMIT Jason PN ___________________________ 13 Islands of Gozo and Comino Imdina, Attard, Mosta, Burmarrad 11 QUOTA Name Party 1 2 3 XUEREB Saviour AB ____________________________ CACOPARDO Carmel AD ____________________________ CASSAR Ralph AD ____________________________ FARRUGIA RANDON Romina MPM ____________________________ MEGALLY Naged MPM ____________________________ AGIUS DECELIS Anthony PL ____________________________ CARDONA Chris PL ____________________________ FARRUGIA Michael PL ____________________________ MUSCAT Alex PL ____________________________ SCHEMBRI Deborah PL ____________________________ TUA Rachel PL ____________________________ VELLA Fleur PL ____________________________ AGIUS David PN ____________________________ AQUILINA Simone PN ____________________________ BARTOLO Ivan PN ____________________________ BUSUTTIL Simon PN ____________________________ CAUCHI Shirley PN ____________________________ DEGUARA Maria PN ____________________________ GALEA Graziella PN ____________________________ MANGION Alex PN ____________________________ PERICI CALASCIONE Alex PN ____________________________ POLIDANO Carmel [Charles] PN ____________________________ SCERRI Connie PN ____________________________ SCHEMBRI Giorgio Mario PN ____________________________ VASSALLO Edwin PN ____________________________ Mellieha, Naxxar (part of), St Paul's Bay 12 QUOTA Name Party 1 2 3 GIARDINA Joseph AB ____________________________ GRECH MINTOFF Ivan AB ____________________________ CARUANA Luke AD ____________________________ GALEA SIMON AD ____________________________ AQUILINA Joseph IND ____________________________ CALLEJA Anthony MPM ____________________________ HASSANIN Fatima MPM ____________________________ ATTARD Joseph Matthew PL ____________________________ BARTOLO Clayton PL ____________________________ BARTOLO Evarist PL ____________________________ FARRUGIA Michael PL ____________________________ GRIMA Alfred PL ____________________________ MERCIECA Franco PL ____________________________ SCHEMBRI Deborah PL ____________________________ SPITERI Kenneth PL ____________________________ VELLA Fleur PL ____________________________ ABELA Sam PN ____________________________ AQUILINA Simone PN ____________________________ AZZOPARDI Mark PN ____________________________ BONNICI Duncan PN ____________________________ BUSUTTIL Simon PN ____________________________ BUTTIGIEG Claudette e] PN ____________________________ CUTAJAR Robert PN ____________________________ DEGUARA Maria PN ____________________________ GALEA Graziella PN ____________________________ MALLIA Salvu PN ____________________________ MUSCAT FENECH ADAMI PN ____________________________ THAKE David PN ____________________________ TORPIANO Edward PN ____________________________ Latest election results on our live tracker www.maltatoday. com.mt/news/data_ and_surveys/polls/ A nightmare started MATTHEW VELLA WHAT went through the mind of Joseph Muscat, the young so- cial democrat prime minister who once lorded over an unprec- edented 36,000 vote majority, when the architect of his Malta Taghna Lkoll campaign, his chief of staff, his childhood friend, had been outed by the Panama Papers as having created a network of off- shore companies for his personal gain while in government? The popular wisdom is that the redoubtable Muscat would have thought that this crisis would blow over just like all the others, as poll after poll kept him in the lead over the flagging Simon Busuttil. Mus- cat defended Schembri and energy minister Konrad Mizzi, playing down the seriousness of the off- shore allegations. But news of the Hearnville and Tillgate company set-ups in 2016 came with dis- concerting information that the two men had attempted to open bank accounts at financial institu- tions. Schembri, a seasoned busi- nessman and newsprint supplier, claimed his offshore interests were nothing new but an extension of his previous business enterprises; but Mizzi's was a resigning matter. Muscat did nothing to restore the dented trust in his administra- tion. Trust ratings plummeted. An investigation by the police into – at the very least – suspicions of tax avoidance was not on the cards. Schembri was retained as chief of staff; Mizzi, elected deputy leader for party affairs just a day after he forcibly revealed his New Zea- land trust in a reaction to sugges- tive posts by Malta Independent columnist Daphne Caruana Gali- zia, was retained as minister un- der Muscat's purview. Both men, Muscat would later say, "were too important" for his administration. But out there, the view was dif- ferent. The Panama Papers pro- pelled protests led by the Nation- alist Party demanding that the two men, and the prime minister, resign. The Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) set out to investigate, but in the summer of 2016, the Commissioner of Police, Michael Cassar resigned soon af- ter receiving the first preliminary report. Soon after, the FIAU ex- ecutive director, Manfred Galdes resigned. Although the speculation was that the FIAU was not being al- lowed to investigate, it turned out – as soon as the 2017 election kicked off – that it had carried out site visits at Pilatus Bank, a private bank where Schembri held a bank account. It also carried out its own investigation into allegations of offshore companies in Dubai, an offshore company set up for one of Shanghai Electric Power's men in Malta, and into payments paid by Nexia BT managing partner Brian Tonna to Schembri, ostensibly as kickbacks for the sale of Maltese passports. Throughout 2016, Panama be- came a taut affair which brought into question the entire Labour administration's future. Muscat saw his trust ratings dip, and he seemed to weather the incessant questioning with ease. But towards the end of the year, the fissure that Panama had created inside Labour looked like just an unsightly cor- ner of a shabby home. And then in 2017, came the first rumblings of something new. Daphne Caruana Galizia posted a photo of Schembri, Mizzi and Muscat (and also John Dalli… why, nobody knows yet) with the title '17 Black, A Company In Dubai'. That was back in February 2017. She was referring to a new com- pany that the FIAU had stumbled upon in their investigations, the alleged 120-page report of which was only made known through ex- cerpts leaked to The Malta Inde- pendent during the general elec- tion now. It stands to reason that Caruana Galizia was aware of the Dubai connection way back, and was only starting to lay out a trail of breadcrumbs to torment her prey. The central allegation that could have been formulated by the FIAU, as suggested by what was only se- lectively published, is that two Dubai companies 17 Black and Mackbridge, had Schembri's and Mizzi's two Panama companies as their "target clients". But more seriously, those Dubai companies would have been the recipients of transactions from Orion Engineer- ing Services, the Maltese company whose Malta address hosts Arma- da Floating Gas Services Ltd, the owners of the LNG tanker subcon- tracted by the ElectroGas consor- tium, who built Malta's 200MW gas plant. This last allegation was perhaps the least laboured allegation dur- ing the election, and yet it is the only one that seems to connect the Panama companies that Malta learnt about in 2016, with Labour's key policy plank, the LNG plant. Which would suggest that when Mizzi and Schembri started form- ing the companies in 2013 (at least Egrant, Pilatus, Tillgate, Hearnville, Willerby, 17 Black and Mackbridge: a new vocabulary for the way the Labour administration became submerged under the offshore scandals that have dogged it since 2016