I think you’ll find that Jean Pierre Debono has been stitched up by his own co-conspirators

When I read the news last Thursday that a Nationalist Party electoral commission report, showing that signatures had been forged on proxies for votes for which Jean Pierre Debono was responsible, had been leaked to Malta Today, I turned to my companion at that moment and said: “This is really convenient for them. Now they can use this to back Debono up against the wall and force him to give up his seat for Delia. This is exactly what they need right now because they have no other avenue open to them and Debono has said already that he doesn’t want to give up his seat.”

By ‘them’ and ‘they’ I meant Delia and his schemers. Yes, I know that Jean Pierre Debono is one of them, but I also know that there is no honour among thieves, particularly not those in politics. They do what they have to do, even if it means throwing their co-schemers to the wolves.

Two minutes later, another thought occurred to me. And I turned to my companion again and said: “You know, I think they might well have leaked that report to the newspaper themselves, for that precise purpose. It’s the kind of dirty thing I would expect from those characters, particularly now that they have nowhere to turn for his seat. They’ve hung Jean Pierre Debono out to dry to get a seat for Delia – because you know how they’ve been saying that nobody is greater than the party.”

I decided then to keep quiet about my theory to see how things would pan out. I knew that if my theory was correct, at some point over the weekend we would have an announcement from Debono that he will be sacrificing himself heroically for the party and Delia. There aren’t many advantages to having spent three decades writing about politics in Malta, except for the fact that it gives me a uniquely cynical insight into these machinations.

When Delia and other members of the gang failed to stand up for him in the face of the massive negative and damaging media coverage that followed that news report, leaving him instead to flounder about defending himself alone on Facebook, I thought “Aha”.

Meanwhile, the two candidates most likely to be elected in the casual election which would follow Debono giving up his seat both made public statements announcing that they would participate in the casual election, but would immediately give up their seat if elected, to make way for Delia’s co-option. Right, I thought, Debono is about to be stitched up good and proper. He almost certainly knows this himself but can’t do anything about it because of that mess with the forged signatures.

And sure enough, we had that announcement this morning, on the front page of The Malta Independent. Jean Pierre Debono will be giving up his seat for Adrian Delia, and this after his having announced repeatedly (see Facebook posts below) that he has no intention of doing so.

I think you’ll find that Debono has been hung out to dry by his own men, for the ‘greater good’ of Delia himself and the others clinging to his coat-tails, because without a seat in parliament their plans for world domination are screwed.

“If you don’t give up your seat, we’re going to make sure that action is taken against you for those forged proxy signatures. Look at all the bad press we’ve had. You have to go. You made that mess and you have to pay the price. But we’ll make it up to you.”

I will add something else. That leaked report and the scandal which followed have also cleared Jean Pierre Debono out of the way as a contender for the post of party secretary-general or deputy leader. So anybody who has been aiming all along for one of those two posts in collusion with Delia has been well served.