"I've been stabbed in the back" - Paul Muscat

The Cospicua local council yesterday elected Joseph Scerri as the new mayor at a highly charged meeting, amid claims by former mayor Paul Muscat that he had been stabbed in the back by fellow Labour councillors.

A Labour councillor, Willie Galea, claimed Labour councillors had been "threatened" by the party and told to force Mr Muscat to resign.

Mr Muscat resigned last Monday.

The council is composed of five Labour councillors, one Nationalist councillor and Mr Muscat, who was elected on the Labour ticket but later barred from representing the party.

Yesterday's meeting was characterised by moments of loud confrontation and others in which one could hear a pin drop.

The meeting started with Mr Muscat objecting to the fact that the agenda was distributed yesterday but bore Wednesday's date. Even the way the agenda was compiled was mistaken, he claimed, warning that he would be informing the department of local councils about these matters.

Deputy mayor Darleen Zerafa replied that the points referred to by Mr Muscat were "administrative mistakes".

After Mr Scerri was nominated and seconded for mayor, an open vote was taken, with Mr Scerri feeling he should abstain.

The result was three votes in favour, two against and two abstentions.

The secretary then referred to local council legislation and informed the council that there needed to be more than three votes in favour to have a simple majority.

When a second vote was taken Mr Scerri voted in his own favour, resulting in four votes in favour, two against and one abstention.

Delivering his first address to the council, Mr Scerri said that the council had never planned to come to this, adding that he "considered everyone as a friend".

This point was taken rather badly by Mr Muscat who replied: "How can I consider you a friend when you have stabbed me in the back?"

Mr Scerri said none of the councillors had been elected to put spokes in the wheels of the council. He said that he would protect others and expected the councillors to rally round each other.

"It was the force of circumstance that led us to this situation," he said.

In another outburst, Mr Muscat said that he considered Mr Scerri's words to be superfluous. He said it was Mr Galea who should have been nominated mayor.

"Instead of coming closer together we have drifted apart," he said, adding that he would serve as an example of what a good councillor should be like.

In answer, Mr Scerri claimed that Mr Muscat had promised to resign and nominate Mr Galea as mayor after he returned from a visit to China with a local council delegation.

Mr Muscat replied that he had said he would resign on condition that he would be reintegrated in the MLP.

Mr Scerri said they (the councillors) could not tell the party what to do.

Mr Muscat said that he would continue to maintain till the end that he had been betrayed.

He recalled that last Thursday, the majority of the Labour councillors had given him an ultimatum: unless he resigned on Monday he would be voted out of office.

Mr Galea charged that Mr Scerri was not fit to be mayor, adding that they had been threatened by the MLP and told to vote Mr Muscat out of office.

Mr Scerri objected to these statements and asked the council's secretary to minute Mr Galea's comments.

Mr Scerri said that he had suggested to Ms Zerafa to go for the post of mayor but she declined saying she had far too many commitments.

Mr Muscat had become estranged from the MLP after the party's vigilance and disciplinary board investigated allegations two years ago that he had tampered with the party vote for the election of party leader in 1992.

In its decision, the board had found that no vote tampering had taken place and sanctioned Mr Muscat by barring him from representing the party in any capacity. Until yesterday he had sat as independent mayor.