Here’s something for the nationalist pundits to analyse. This article had escaped my attention last Sunday thanks to the time taken up by the Spring cleaning and the new freezer I had to install. The Times and a Nationalist newbie… loverly. I think the last comment posted says it all. Here’s the bulk of the article before it vanishes from the ether:
***
Behold, a new ‘honourable’ member is in town – Mark Micallef
Contacted for his comments yesterday, Dr Debono said he had not asked for an actual correction, but had just pointed out to the journalist that he was not precise. “This is history,” he said, “you were incorrect, not in my regard mostly, but in your readers’. “So, now, because I insist on precision, and called courteously pointing out that you had a mistake, in turn I get a phone call from you… I didn’t say anything, for instance, when you took the comments of all the other candidates and dedicated only one line to me while others got six lines, I didn’t phone for that. I didn’t phone because you took (Dr) Galea’s comments twice on two days and (not those) of the elected MPs.
“I have huge respect for (Dr) Galea,” he continued, “you cannot understand how much but… the fact is that I didn’t take Helen D’ Amato’s seat, absolutely not, first of all for the sake of facts, and secondly… I had an almost impossible district if it interests you… I have huge, huge respect for (Dr) Galea, I cannot really explain but the fact that I succeeded in this, I think I deserve a bit of credit as well…”
Dr Debono was elected from the fifth district for the PN with 2,065 first-count votes. He managed to gain the seat usually taken by the highly respected Dr Galea, as a result of the surprising number of votes he managed to garner and the fact that the district’s boundaries had changed.
The former education minister is usually elected from two districts and cedes his seat to Ms D’Amato. This time round, he failed to get elected in either district – so both MPs lost out. With this in mind, the journalist reporting Dr Debono’s unexpected triumph wrote that the young lawyer from the south had managed to outdo the former parliamentary secretary. But Dr Debono called, stressing that he had eliminated Dr Galea too, just as messages of praise and tribute started flowing in for the man described as the co-architect of the Nationalist Party.
He insisted, in fact, that the race had been a difficult one for him and that he had put in a lot of effort, which included abandoning his law firm for three months and that the result was a consequence of that. Bruised but not bitter, Dr Galea had said he was serene about the result, joking that this would be his “new beginning”. Perhaps, the young lawyer would have done well to inherit a bit of the graciousness along with his seat.
***
Revolutionary material. How brave of the Times. How gallant of Franco (a wave to a former colleague of mine in the law course). How absolutely spiffing!
Go on Fausto… analyse this!
j'accuse 
I understand your request for punditry. But “nationalist” punditry?
On the electoral mechanics, Debono’s right. In last election the two elected MPs were Louis Galea and Ninu Zammit. Helen D’Amato was only elected in a casual election. Debono could have been said to have taken D’Amato’s seat if he was likewise elected. But he was not and the two MPs returned from the district were Debono and Zammit. There will be no casual election in the Fifth so both Galea and D’Amato are definitely out.
As to the “graciousness” with which the Times incorrect assertion was taken … I wouldn’t know what to say. Another kind of punditry, perhaps. It is a lawyer thing, by any chance?
I don’t think there’s anything for Fausto or others to analyse, Jacques. Prats are prats, whatever party they belong to. I’ve already written about this on my blog, under the heading ‘another pompous ass joins the melee’. Well done for the spring cleaning, by the way – nice to see a man who bothers.
Let’s thank the single transferable vote system for all this unhealthy competition between members of the same party.
Daphne loves the word prat and justifiably thinks that Malta’s full of them. Here’s what she means when she calls someone a prat – c/o Urban dictionary.
3. prat
a self-aggrandizing, pompous fuck. Someone who is full of themselves and, almost invariably, stupid as well. With a hint of ‘deluded.’
“I’m getting really tired of listening to Vince brag about his conquests. What a prat.”
Who gets the Daphne Prat Award this week?
1) Harry Vassallo with his OTT adrenalin-rush article inspired by the ‘surreal welcome’ he received in the Naxxar MLP club?
2) ‘Jaysin The Peacock’?
3) Lou Bondi decked in his Larry King style braces shamelessly chummy-chummying Gonzi and KatePN?
4) Franco Debono the Galea slayer?
5) Jacques who has been called a prat in the past? or
6) Kenneth Zammit Tabona with his operatic aria in today’s Times?
David,
iva inti wkoll?
Sandro –
Ser nohrog sett T-shirts bl-islogan “One man’s prat is another man’s prophet”. Tista’ taghzel int lil wicc min titfa’ fuqu.
Ara David, ha ntik ghazla: –
ghandek lil dan bhala prat: –
lil dan bhala prophet:
lil dan bhala another man:
dawn bhala other mans:
u dan bhala One:
Konkluzjoni:
Is it true that Franco Debono enjoys a particular high level contact founded on kinship?
@ Periklu: You know he does. He does not seem to share the humble nature of that particular lady though. 😦