Former Labour councillor Charles Azzopardi has confirmed he will contest the upcoming general election on the Nationalist Party ticket on the seventh district.
Azzopardi decided to switch electoral allegiance just three months after contesting the Labour parliamentary seat vacated by former minister Edward Scicluna. After serving in local council politics for 19 years, he attributed the swing on grounds that Labour “lost its connection to the roots of the party’s principles”.
“I was the first Labour mayor to be elected in Rabat, and I contested seven different elections on the party’s behalf,” Azzopardi said.
“Coming from such a background, I firmly believed in Labour’s 2013 dream to build a better Malta.
“After the first few years, I realised that dream was just a lie, a premeditated scheme to make money at the cost of everyone else’s well-being,” he told Times of Malta.
Azzopardi said he decided to switch political sides after facing “a blatant block vote” against himself in 2017, allegations of corruption and nepotism in 2019, and January’s casual election that saw Gavin Gulia elected only to resign within hours to make way for co-option.
Friction with the party
The former mayor had said he was not surprised that the party had pushed him out of the by-election.
“They wanted me out because I would not have joined Labour’s parliamentary group, and instead I would have gone independent like Godfrey and Marlene Farrugia,” he argued.
“I believe politics is a powerful tool for serving and helping people, and I think that it needs to be done with a spirit of altruism. Politics is not business; I come from a family that went through very rough times, and we grew up taking care of each other,” he said, adding that “all I want is to serve others”.
Azzopardi also opened up about struggles he had faced after being accused of corruption and nepotism, and barred from contesting the local council elections in 2019.
To this day, police investigations have not resulted in any kind of legal prosecution, and Azzopardi maintains that the person he had hired to work for the council is a valid individual whose contributions can be “attested to” by the local council.
“I’ve always admired PN”
When asked about why he believes the PN is a better alternative, Azzopardi said he did so “out of love for the country” and because he felt he could not “just rest on his laurels after reading all the reports about money laundering and corruption”.
“That is why I decided to contest the election with the PN. I had two choices, in reality; I was certainly not going back to the PL after being treated that way, and I've always had an admiration for the PN,” Azzopardi argued.
“Choosing the PL was clearly not the right decision,” he added.
“To be pro-business is one thing, but to be pro-scheming and plotting is another. The PN is aware of the fact that I was never interested in being partisan but was only interested in serving people, as otherwise they would not have wanted me to join,” he said.
When contacted, a PN spokesman said every prospective candidate has to go through a due diligence process before the executive committee gives its seal of approval.