Malta: the place where liberal values are confused with shoddy standards
I’m trying hard to think of civilised countries – that is, not dictatorships – where prominent cabinet ministers dump their wives and children for anyone at all, let alone a 26-year-old reporter at the party station, then immediately begin stepping out with her on an official basis, taking her to official events in their role as minister, and nobody sees fit to notice anything untoward, not even in the newspapers.
France, perhaps? Well, we envy them many, many things, but certainly not the chaotic and all-over-the-place lives and very public bedroom antics of their presidents.
And even in France, the press goes wild when these things happen.
Malta is truly a world unto itself. So the Justice Minister leaves his wife, a nurse at the state hospital, and child (his wife having already forgiven him some earlier bouts of cheating) for a reporter at the party station, and there is not even the barest interim where they do the decent, civilised thing and keep a low profile before stepping out together all over town, still less making the girlfriend official escort at events to which he is invited as a cabinet minister.
Here’s the Justice Minister (a married man with a very small child) with his girlfriend, the Super One reporter Janice Bartolo, entering the Cena del Corso held at the Malta Maritime Museum a few days ago. I suppose I should find it significant that TVM’s news site, from I obtained this photograph, chose to upload it. There are no other photographs of ‘dignitaries’ entering the banquet. This is the only one.
Janice was then seated next to the Opposition leader (“Iva, nafu min int, Janice.”) who she is sent, by her party newsroom, to hector and question.
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There were, indeed, some other dignitaries: H.E. The President & Mr Preca, who arrived late and left after the first course, His Grace Bishop Scicluna, who arrived on time and left when the President did, and the Leader of the Opposition & Ms Kristina Chetcuti, who arrived on time and left at the end of the (incidentally very enjoyable) event.
With the generous taxpayer picking up by the bill?
I don’t see your point. This was a private fund-raising initiative. Perhaps the Ministry paid Bonnici’s and the Office paid the President’s, but as far as I know, everyone else paid to go.
U mela….kiltu u xbajtu u fastidju lil hadd ma tajtu.
Live and let live.
The subtle message is taken.
I don’t care how many people minsters shag, but if she had any decency, she would give up her reporter job.
Decency?! Haha.
Decency? She works for Super One.
As soon as I saw this I could not help but think of our MPs in government and especially their leader, the transparent, democratic, capable of decisions PM.
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Sorry. Basically it’s a saying which describes the Labour government perfectly, it goes:
”As long as everything is exactly the way I want, I am absolutely flexible.”
Was sitting the One reporter next to Dr. Busuttil pre-planned or was it someone’s idea of a bad joke?
[Daphne – She was placed next to him because she was there as the consort of the representative of the government, Owen Bonnici.]
I don’t like it when chavs wear pocket squares.
Or an ankle bracelet
She’s a kinky one, eh?
Isn’t this a case where the media is in bed with a politician?
Nitpicker!
Nitpricker
More like a situation where the politician is gagging the media.
Muscat’s Meritocracy, where the beds are made and the maids are bedded.
Germany!
1. During the election campaign of 1997, prime minister of Lower Saxony Gerhard Schroeder dumped his wife No. 3 for a much younger reporter named Doris Köpf who he later married (apparently they are getting divorced).
2. Christian Wulff, when prime minister of Lower Saxony, dumped his wife and family for a much younger former ‘consort’ called Bettina and her illegitimate son, to then become President of Germany. They are also now divorced.
3. Horst Seehofer, when cabinet minister, betrayed his wife, conceived a child, dumped the mistress after a public outcry and went on to become prime minister of Germany’s most Catholic state – Bavaria.
Then there are Guenther Oettinger, Theo Waigl, etc.
The list is much longer.
The standards are so shoddy there now that even the Liberal Party (FDP) doesn’t get elected anymore, everyone is so bloody liberal already.
But can anyone explain why she is there in the first place? Who is issuing formal invitations to “the Minister for Justice and Miss Janice Bartolo”?
People here in Malta are completely clueless about how things should be done. In the absence of a formal announcement of separation, the invitation should still have been issued to the Minister for Justice and Mrs Bonnici. And if the separation is official, then the invitation should have been to the Minister for Justice alone.
The only scenario I can envisage in which the invitation is made out to the Minister for Justice and his new girlfriend would be if the Minister himself asked specifically for it to be that way.
[Daphne – There is another scenario, which I think more likely: the invitation was made out to the Minister for Justice and Mrs Bonnici and he turned up with Janice Bartolo instead.]
“And partner”. Isn’t that what they call it nowadays?
“People here in Malta are completely clueless about how things should be done…. And if the separation is official, then the invitation should have been to the Minister for Justice alone.”
This comment reminds me of all the fuss Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando made about his invitation to the Papal mass, which didn’t include his ‘partner’, Carmen Camilleri Ciantar, (later his wife, now his second estranged wife).
The ‘incident’ then led him to present his private member’s bill to introduce divorce.
Janice is a single mother or a woman with a child.
She is not going to trust him going to events alone, because what goes around comes around.
So true.
Then she had better physically, permanently chain herself to him.
Most cheats can be quite innovative and they do not restrict themselves to specific events.
So that is an ankle bracelet? X’ hamallagni.
It’s interesting what happens when two cheaters date each other. Who will cheat on who first?
Why should a woman take her husband back after cheating? It’s obvious that he’ll do it again, and this time he’ll do it more easily because he’s been through it before.
Besides he’ll think that his wife will sit it out as she did last time.
Forgive and forget as many times as necessary throughout a marriage but I feel that cheating is one of the few unforgivable actions in a marriage.
[Daphne – No, it doesn’t follow that if somebody does it once then they will do it again. It isn’t good judgement to sacrifice a home, marriage and the family life of small children if what you were dealing with was a single aberration.
There are personality types that are predisposed to cheating because they need the constant attention and these are, yes, likely to do it serially. But there are personality types that will only do it the once, exceptionally, and generally in periods of great stress in their lives. Those will not do it again.
The other spouse has to work out what sort of personality type s/he is dealing with. The Minister of Justice strikes me as the serial philanderer type but of the sort who must justify his philandering to himself and others by turning it into a relationship. With that kind of man what you get is a series of relationships, even if each one lasts for some years. This is one of those cases in which neither the husband nor the wife saw the Plain Jane coming.
I’ve written about it before. Plain Janes like Janice Bartolo are more likely to succeed in breaking up a marriage because 1. they are not obviously attractive and so the man has his defences down (they go up with obviously sexy and attractive women) and the wife is not at all suspicious of somebody so mousy; this makes the way in a lot easier; 2. some men think that if the object of their attraction is not good-looking, then it must be love and the Real Thing and not just sex, when really it is sex because that’s how practically all relationships of this kind begin; it is then up to the interloping woman to convince the man that it is in fact love.]
Well, all I can say is that if I were the wife of one of those who cheat only once in times of great stress, I would find it very hard to trust my husband again.
Because you really can never tell if it’s going to happen again or not. It’s not easy living in a life full of dread that it might happen again.
Even if it doesn’t, you’ll always have the suspicion that your husband is seeing someone else.
I know a couple where the husband had a ‘skappatura’ and was mortified afterwards. He even told his wife about it and very bravely she forgave him. However they still have the incident hanging over their heads. The husband feels eternally guilty and practically can’t function, the wife tries her best to move on but of course her husband’s behaviour doesn’t help.
I feel that it’s best to get out of the situation as early as possible and make it clear to your husband that if it happens there will be no going back.
An even worse species than cheating husbands are cheating boyfriends and girlfriends (although I think that men are more likely to cheat than women).
Why stay in a relationship you hate, especially one without any children, when you can break it off whenever you like?
It makes me think that such people cheat for cheating’s sake.
As for the women who knowingly stay in such a relationship, all I can say is, it serves you right if your future husband cheats on you again. Some women love playing the victim and the ‘damsel in distress’ scenario.
Well then they seem to be of the same type. Janice Bartolo is well known for having dated a bundle of guys including DJs on One, higher-ranked people at One, newscasters from PBS, well the list never really ends.
Just like you are saying, she’s always looking for some attention from someone new. No wonder she hasn’t had a single long relationship at 27.
I think she should have walked entering behind him.
She thinks she owns him :)
I avoid being judgmental about other people’s lives but I cannot help feel disgust when a father of small children abandons the family.
Childhood and youth are beautiful times of a person’s life but they can be very difficult even when both parents are around. When the father leaves, the child’s life is made infinitely more difficult right up to adulthood. It is so unfair, even cruel, on the children.
There is also the massive unfairness to the wife. Bringing up children is a tough job and shoving all that responsibility onto one of the parents is disgraceful.
No matter how justified it may seem, people who abandon their young children disgust me. That is why I find people like Owen Bonnici and Robert Musumeci as disgusting human beings who deserve nothing but contempt.
What is most disgusting about this couple is that they are both the ones that abandoned their families, both the ones who cheated and both the ones that are making life difficult for their children.
Two seamless characters that walk over everyone to fulfil their lust and greed.
Janice has choppers that rival the ones on Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.