St Julian’s mayor Albert Buttigieg has made a cryptic comparison between himself and French martyr Joan of Arc ahead of a hearing in front of the Nationalist Party’s board of ethics later on Monday evening.
Buttigieg is facing disciplinary action after falling out with the PN administration after he claimed to Times of Malta that a party official had conspired with a construction industry “fat cat” to silence him.
Earlier this month, Bernard Grech’s former right-hand-man Ray Bezzina asked the party to investigate the claims. While Buttigieg named no names, it is understood he was referring to Bezzina.
When Buttigieg was asked to substantiate his claims, he accused the PN of emulating the Labour Party’s tactics when faced with accusations of sleaze.
On Monday, Buttigieg changed his Facebook cover photo to a statue of French revolutionary Joan of Arc, who was convicted as a heretic and burned at the stake on May 30, 591 years ago.
“Joan of Arc was charged with heresy and witchcraft by her own people and burned alive at the stake,” Buttigieg said in a status update.
“Fifteen years later, her conviction was formally overturned due to her "unjust and deceitful" trial.
Children say that people are hanged sometimes for speaking the truth.”
Buttigieg is set to face the PN’s board of ethics over the matter at 6pm on Monday.
Considered a hero in France for her role in the siege of Orleans and successful military action during the Hundred Years’ War, Joan of Arc was handed over to the English and burnt as a heretic. Her conviction was posthumously quashed and she was canonised as a saint by the Catholic Church.
In his opinion piece, Buttigieg said that he was unfairly sidelined by the party during the last election campaign and questioned whether his vocal opposition to overdevelopment in St Julian’s had ruffled some feathers in the higher echelons of the PN administration.
“Could it be, then, that I irked someone? Was there any particular pressure to sideline me in return for donations and/or promise of employment? Even the mayor of Xagħra, a Labour candidate, publicly lamented that his “candidacy was killed” due to his criticism of overdevelopment,” Buttigieg wrote.
He goes on to say that an acquaintance had overheard a discussion between an “unofficial party official” and a person with considerable business interests in St Julian’s, in which the latter asked for the official to “shut him up”.