Speaker of the House confirms that the Prime Minister bought his silence

Anglu Farrugia, the Speaker of the House, confirms by default that the Prime Minister bought his silence, in an interview with The Malta Independent.

“The issues we had will remain between us,” he told his interviewer, Pierre Portelli.

Farrugia was kicked out of the Labour Party’s deputy leader position only a few weeks before the 2013 general election. Party leader Joseph Muscat said that it was because he had passed a remark about a magistrate and impugned the independence of the judiciary. The real reason was that Farrugia had performed disastrously on a peak-viewing-time political debate, and Muscat wanted to replace him with switcher-magnet Louis Grech, an elderly MEP battling cancer, who had an extensive network of contacts among socio-economic group AB.

Anglu Farrugia reacted by giving a big interview to The Sunday Times, alluding to pre-electoral shady dealings with business operators on the “fourth floor” of the Labour Party’s headquarters. He then went silent, causing people to wonder whether he had struck a deal with Muscat.

Immediately Muscat was elected Prime Minister, he appointed Farrugia Speaker of the House. And last year, a few days after she completed the statutory requirement of seven years of law practice, he made Farrugia’s daughter, Caroline, a magistrate. Just past 30, Caroline Farrugia’s entire work experience consisted of helping her father in his law office. When he became Speaker, she was left alone and couldn’t cope. A solution was found. Farrugia also fixed a job for her husband, his son-in-law, in the parliament library.