Another former parliamentary secretary is out in the wilderness

Deborah Schembri is not the only former parliamentary secretary to lose it all – her seat in the cabinet as well as her seat in parliament. This afternoon, former parliamentary secretary Stefan Buontempo joined her in the political wilderness as he failed to beat off party rival Etienne Grech for the seat vacated on the Fourth District.

For the last four years, a state-paid chauffeur and publicly-funded car in the official service of the parliamentary secretary for local councils have been used to take Mr Buontempo’s children to Chiswick House and St Martin’s schools and collect them at the end of the day. Today, Mr Buontempo was seen dropping his children off at school himself in his personal car.

Mr Buontempo’s marriage quietly broke up some months ago, the only public statement being Mrs Buontempo’s changed status from ‘married’ to ‘separated’ on her Facebook page.

It appears that MPs whose marriages break down while they are in office struggle to be re-elected or fail completely – Christian Cardona, Owen Bonnici and Stefan Buontempo being cases in point.

Though his wife was nowhere in his electoral campaign, Jason Azzopardi waited until just after the general election of 3rd June to walk out of the marital home and travel abroad publicly for the first time with his girlfriend, the glamorous actress and Valletta shopkeeper Flavia Borg Bonaci(very publicly, because they were late to board and their joint names were announced over the airport’s public address system yesterday morning). He was elected on the first count. Ms Borg Bonaci starred in a soap opera called Intricci (Maltese for ‘Intrigue’) on the Nationalist Party’s television station.

Former parliamentary secretary for local councils, Stefan Buontempo, who failed to make it to parliament in today’s casual election for vacated seats.