Our Joey is a follower, not a leader
The Poodle’s figuri paterni
People are either natural leaders or natural followers (or just plain loners like Alfred Sant). If you have no leadership qualities you can become a leader but you can forget about staying one because you’ve got a problem there.
Joseph Muscat is a natural follower, so by default he’s not a leader. He’s one of those people who get ahead by clinging to the petticoats of others, and who have no true identity of their own. He clung to Sant, he tells us that George Vella was a mentor, I know that Mario Vella ex-MDC was another mentor, and here he explains how Joe Debono Grech was his figura paterna.
You have to hand it to the kid – he sure knows how to choose them.
F’Joe Debono Grech nibqa’ napprezza l-inkoraggiment kbir li tani u liz-“zghar” l-ohrajn minhabba l-eccitament li kellna qabel ma ndirizzajna l-mass meetings. Joe kien figura paterna.
– Joseph Muscat, L-orizzont (23 June 2004)
Strange bedfellows
When Sharon Ellul Bonici was turned down as a Labour candidate for the European Parliament elections, she was represented before the party’s Vigilance and Discipline Board by none other than former police inspector Anglu Farrugia. Perhaps he made one of those famously ferocious speeches that he boasts about on his website www.anglufarrugia.com. How I would have loved to be there. It’s a good thing you don’t have to use spelling and punctuation when you argue ferociously.
Why am I bringing this up after four years? Well, looking back at all these alliances and power configurations is very interesting in the light of what’s going on now. I love seeing them all shafting each other. It’s a whole lot better than watching them shaft the country.
Mrs Ellul Bonici was last seen fighting in public on television with that Jason Micallef. Anglu Farrugia was last seen on this blog, riding an elephant.
Let’s see now whether Mrs Ellul Bonici backs him in his bid for the leadership against Joseph Muscat. That should ruin his chances.
Now we can all sit back and watch the fur and feathers fly as Poodle-helped-by-chicken tackles Lion tackles Peacock tackles the-man-with-the-elephant.
Bring out the popcorn.
What a difference the right sort of vacancy makes
God bless the Internet and on-line access to newspaper archives. Just Google Joseph Muscat and all kinds of riches pop up. Here’s the new leader of the Labour Party, in an interview with Malta Today (6 January 2002):
“Would I consider going out for general elections? Definitely not. You see, I have another theory that to stand for the general elections you must be either a robber, a missionary or just plain crazy. I don’t think I’m any of these. And I don’t really like the local system where you find yourself standing against candidates who have the same ideology as you do. With all its disadvantages I prefer the first past the post system the way it works in England. At least that way you are fighting against candidates who have opposing ideologies to yours. Having said that I do admire those who have the guts to contest the elections.”
Gosh, it’s a good thing he’s going to be co-opted into parliament then, isn’t it? Then like others before him Who Shall Not Be Mentioned, he can contest the 2013 general election as party leader, and get 14000 personal votes without competing for them. Wonderful. The kid has it all sewn up.
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Yepp Daphne… and if we continue to search the archives, we are going to have some fun….
Incredible, MLP after a disastrous defeat, they come out with JM as the promising leader…
THEY NEVER LEARN….
It looks like their own ghosts are coming out to haunt them. Sounds like fun!
@ Kenneth Spiteri
You are right but there are gullible people who get taken in by a pretty face and a few flowery speeches (even if plagiarized). Besides that’s what was available when they scratched the bottom of the MLP barrel. Unless they take the plunge and elect someone from outside the ‘golden’ circle it will be the ‘mixture as before’ and we shall have to put up with the same old bromides ad nauseam.
Well, I should say AF did a good job at the Court of the Three Wise Men, for he knows the MLP statute well.
So, for the record, SEB WAS allowed in for the 800-odd delegates’ vote for EP election candidates (remember, first there were 4, then another 4 were approved in another vote).
Yet the leadership conceived a nice trick: they raised the approval threshold to 70%, thereby ensuring a 30% minority blockage vote against whoever did not gain their trust. The 30% blockage vote was well calculated (just) since on both occasions SEB missed the 70% mark by 14 and 5 votes respectively (although we’ll never really know since the vote counting was done Zimbabwe style – a party apparatchik was caught cheating on SEB votes in the presence of SEB herself! And that’s the truth! Let any stalwart try to contradict this sickening fact!).
As for the battles to come? You may be surprised.
@Phaedra Giuliani
Who told you JM have a pretty face… if he is pretty then what am I ????
Daphne, If you like, I will send you my pic so people can realize who is pretty between me and the poodle….heheheheh
cheers….
@ Vincent
When a woman says that a man has a pretty face it means that he is off-putting…
Men! Kieku tifhmu xi haga!!!! hahahaaha
Ooops that comment was directed at Kenneth Spiteri….imma l-kumment ta’ l-istench ta’ Vincent sturdieni ftit :-D
@ Meerkat
So you’re a woman? Aha! Thought so! That’s why I was looking forward to see you on Realta next Monday!!!
;)
@ Meerkat….yepp we got it no problem…
a bit of sense of humour my friend…
by the way, why Vincent????
@ amrio
No I am a man that understands women LOL
Europarl / Kevin Ellul Bonici: Why does the MLP want Sharon Ellul Bonici out of the way?
Corinne,
Are you serious? You’re asking “Why does the MLP want Sharon Ellul Bonici out of the way?”
(now I understand why your “replies” to me seem like coming out of Tibet…)
But hasn’t Jason told you: “ghax ewroxettika”?
The official judgement from the Court of the Three Wise Men is that Sharon’s principles on the EU go against the Party’s “principles”.
Meaning: SEB is critical of the soviet development of the EU, whereas MLP want to look like goody-goody Yes-men – they want to emulate the Gonzi clan. So they now kind of see it the way you do. You should be proud of the lot.
Besides, their mentors in the EP (the PES) would highly disapprove of Labour criticising the emergence of the new EU. So they prefer not to see any warts (there’s some good medicine for this – and it works, after some time you see no more warts: it’s called ‘political expediency’).
I mean just look at the greatest convert of them all: George of the Bungle Vella! Now that’s a puLiTiKant – a walking study in political expediency.
Kemm hu helu Gorg!
Europarl / Kevin Ellul Bonici: I thought you knew all about irony. If I were in Tibet, I’d wouldn’t be too troubled by the machinations of the MLP as there would be the small matter of human rights violation to consider.
Let me rephrase my question. Since Sharon Ellul Bonici’s position is totally at odds with the MLP’s, why does she persist in trying to represent the MLP rather than starting her own party?
True, Corinne, your “irony” is very much of the Tibetan sort.
Your second, very different, question makes more sense. Would you also like her shoe size?
But let me just say that there’s a time for everything. In any case, this would interest others much more than you.
Europarl / Kevin Ellul Bonici: It’s the natural flipside of the same question, actually.
Tell me, is the non-sequitur a weapon normally used by caped crusaders or are you in civvies and tripping on acid when you visit this blog?
“natural flipside”? hehe, Okay, I’ll give you that – in the spirit of the (super)imposed truce.
Besides, caped crusaders don’t hit on weaklings – we fly over mountains in search of damsels selling good acid to visit this blog.
Europarl / Kevin Ellul Bonici: When you hang up your cape and tights and pack away your arsenal of non-sequiturs, please rewrite your last message in earthling mode for the benefit of provincials.
Good idea, Corinne Vella! Remind me on my next flight to your whereabouts. I guess provincial Korean should do.
Europarl – Give up! You’re no match for Corinne.
@ europarl
Maybe this can help :-D
http://images.buycostumes.com/mgen/merchandiser/31388.jpg
No offence intended but why does all the discussion in here have to revolve around Ms. Ellul Bonici as if she were the beacon of Maltese politics? She is at best, a political dwarf, best forgotten.