Fish farm lobbyist Charlon Gouder lost his cool during a radio interview on Saturday morning as he leapt to the defence of Joseph Muscat.
Gouder, a former Labour Party reporter turned lawyer who now represents offshore tuna ranchers, was debating Independent MEP candidate Arnold Cassola on RTK 103.
The two men had already clashed while discussing fallout from the Sofia public inquiry and the Labour government’s responsibility for its findings.
But it was when talk turned to Joseph Muscat’s potential run as an MEP candidate in the upcoming June elections that the already heated debate lost all semblance of civility.
Cassola said Socialist MEPs were less than enthused by the prospect of “the 2019 Corrupt Person of the Year” joining them in Strasbourg – an allusion to the dubious title awarded to Muscat by the Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) during his time as prime minister.
That soundbite appeared to throw Gouder off-kilter.
“You should be ashamed!” he yelled as Cassola sought to conclude his point. “Where is the evidence?”
Aside from his work as CEO of the Maltese Federation of Aquaculture Producers, Gouder has also represented Muscat as a lawyer in the past.
As he grew increasingly irate, Cassola twisted the knife by implying Gouder was working for the former prime minister for free.
“Muscat doesn’t pay him, though. He works for free,” Cassola said with a wink.
Gouder challenged Cassola to prove that Muscat was corrupt, telling him that if he had any proof “we will go, right now, to the Commissioner of Police and hand it over.”
“Do you have it? Answer me! Stop preaching from the pulpit!” Gouder yelled.
Cassola then needled Gouder once again.
“This lawyer is attracted to bad smells,” he said. “Even political ones because he’s Muscat’s lawyer.”
The accusation prompted Gouder to accuse Cassola of attacking him on a personal basis.
"I never attacked Cassola personally," he noted.
Muscat, who was forced out as prime minister in January 2020 following national anti-corruption protests, remains extremely popular among Labour voters.
An internal party poll about his potential candidacy for MEP concluded that if Muscat runs, Labour is virtually guaranteed to consolidate its fourth MEP seat and that Muscat would obtain 20,000 more votes than Roberta Metsola, the Opposition’s star candidate.
Muscat is biding his time about a potential bid, though, and last week dismissed suggestions that he has decided to run.
“Nothing has changed,” he told Times of Malta after Labour pundit Emmanuel Cuschieri said Muscat’s wife had given her blessing to return to politics.