The prime minister would "not necessarily" open his arms to Konrad Mizzi as he did with former MPs Rosianne Cutajar and Justyne Caruana, he told Times of Malta this week.
Robert Abela was speaking outside parliament the day after he brought up Justyne Caruana's name in a TVM interview.
He was asked whether his openness to Cutajar and Caruana meant he was also ready to welcome back controversial MPs Konrad Mizzi and Chris Cardona and former prime minister Joseph Muscat.
Abela would not comment on Muscat and Cardona but he did drop a comment on Mizzi.
“I will not speculate. The reasoning I used in the cases of Rosianne Cutajar and Justyne Caruana does not necessarily apply to Konrad Mizzi,” he said.
Abela first raised eyebrows last week when he told Times of Malta that Rosianne Cutajar had paid a high enough political price and deserved a second chance.
Then on Monday, during an interview on TVM's Xtra, Abela voluntarily brought up Justyne Caruana's name when he was asked about PL MEP Josianne Cutajar's announcement that she would not seek re-election.
Caruana, a former Gozo minister and Labour MP, bowed out of the political scene in 2022 after scandals led her to resign twice in two years as minister.
Both Cutajar and Caruana are from Gozo, and Abela said Caruana is another MP who has paid enough and whose absence from politics has been a loss for the country.
The comments fuelled speculation that Abela could be asking Caruana to be Labour's MEP candidate for Gozo, but his moves also raised eyebrows over his willingness to give second chances to MPs who had to pay a political price for shortcomings and wrongdoings while in office.
It begged the question, many argued - when does a politician go too far and lose the chance of ever being rehabilitated?
Speaking to Times of Malta, Abela acknowledged not everyone could benefit from the warm welcome.
There was behaviour that disqualified a politician from public life forever, but he was not clear on what that was.
Each case must be analysed on its own, he said, but Justyne Caruana’s case definitely did not merit that.
He insisted justice is sometimes much harsher than it should be with people in the Labour Party, as was the case with Caruana.
Nobody is perfect, he said, not even the then-standards commissioner who found her in breach of ethics, not even Abela himself. Everyone is guilty of shortcomings and it is unfair to cancel someone completely over a mistake they have paid enough for.
He also said he spoke with both Rosianne Cutajar and Justyne Caruana and said he “does not exclude there is interest that they participate” in political life once again.