Exclusive: Joseph Muscat In Touch With ‘Basically Everyone’ In Labour And Speaks To Konrad Mizzi ‘Every Week’
Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said he is still in touch with practically everyone from the Labour Party and that he speaks to former minister Konrad Mizzi every week.
“I don’t pester them or send them daily messages or so on but I am in touch with basically everyone within the PL,” Muscat revealed in an exclusive interview with Lovin Malta, which will be published over the weekend.
He said that some of his former government team members approach him to pick his brain on particular topics while others have maintained a friendly relationship with him.
Muscat said he speaks to former minister Konrad Mizzi, who was kicked out of the Labour Party in the wake of the Montenegro wind farm scandal, every week.
“I told him that I disagree with him not answering questions at the Public Accounts Committee because I think that the answers he can give are very good from the technical point of view of the NAO report.”
He also confirmed that he speaks to his former chief of staff Keith Schembri every two weeks or so.
As for his successor Robert Abela, Muscat said that while he never volunteers advice to him, the current Prime Minister sometimes directly approaches him to countercheck previous government decisions.
Joseph Muscat confirms that Robert Abela speaks to him directly when he needs to bounce something off him
“It’s not the first time we’ve spoken but I’ll keep our conversations to ourselves,” he said.
Following a police search on his home as part of a magisterial inquiry into the Vitals Global Healthcare deal, Muscat published a video in which he said will become more vocal and meet more people face to face.
Asked who he is meeting and whether these include people who run the country, Muscat adopted a cautious stance, saying he is meting people he trusts.
“I’m telling my story and my version of events to those who are interested in hearing them out,” he said.
Muscat said that while he intended to “fade away” from public life, the police search changed his mind.
“My intention was to fade away. I resigned from my post, I resigned from Parliament and I wasn’t in politics any longer.”
Joseph Muscat in a video he published after the police search
“Did I have opinions about things that were happening locally and internationally? Of course, I do have opinions but I kept them to myself. I think it was the right thing to do to give enough space to Robert Abela and his team to do their job.”
“In doing so, and by also not responding to the continuous attacks on me, some people interpreted my silence as a sort of admission of guilt… look, he’s not saying anything because he has something to hide. I have nothing to hide.”
“I think that the search in my home was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I decided… well, hell, I’ll start saying what I think, from time to time and occasionally. That’s why I’m here.”
“I realised that just being at the fringes and the margins, out of my own volition, wasn’t being seen as a sort of way of giving space but as a sort of way of hiding, and I’m not hiding.”
The first part of the interview will be published tomorrow at 9am.
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