Construction lobby chief Sandro Chetcuti is a Labour Party member, Health Minister and Labour leadership hopeful Chris Fearne said on Friday when asked why Mr Chetcuti had attended his final campaign event.
A photo from the Thursday evening event at Villa Arrigo in Naxxar showed Mr Chetcuti, who heads the Malta Developers Association, embracing former minister Konrad Mizzi.
In comments to Times of Malta on Friday, Mr Fearne said the occasion was "specifically targeted" at Labour Party members.
"Both Konrad Mizzi and Sandro Chetcuti are party members," Mr Fearne said. He did not reply to questions about whether he condoned such familiarity between government officials and lobbyists.
Mr Fearne and Labour MP Robert Abela are running to replace Joseph Muscat as Labour Party leader and prime minister. Around 17,500 party members are eligible to vote in the Saturday election.
A 'cordial' meeting
The MDA on Friday said that it had held a "cordial" meeting with Mr Fearne on Thursday.
Asked about the meeting and whether this meant the government's close relationship with the MDA would continue if he were to become prime minister, Mr Fearne did not reply.
Instead he told Times of Malta that throughout his campaign he had met "various associations", the MDA being one of them.
The 'fourth floor' and Chetcuti
Mr Chetcuti was this week named by former Labour deputy leader and current parliamentary Speaker Anġlu Farrugia as an example of the business people he felt had become too close to Joseph Muscat's Labour.
Dr Farrugia told a public inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination that Mr Chetcuti had an office of his own on the fourth floor of party headquarters ahead of the 2013 election.
In a sworn statement issued through his lawyer, Mr Chetcuti said that he “never had an office in the fourth floor or any other floor of the Labour Party general headquarters”.
Mr Fearne did not reply to questions about Mr Chetcuti's close relationship with the party.
Last month, Mr Fearne told Times of Malta that he did not feel the PL was too close to big business.
"If there was someone who became close to big business, I don’t think it was the Labour Party. If anything it was [former chief of staff to the prime minister], Keith Schembri," he had said.