Delia’s Harsh Critic Has Cleaned His Facebook Of All Trash-Talk
After months of bashing PN leader favourite Adrian Delia, law commissioner Franco Debono has suddenly cleaned his Facebook wall of all references to him – a day before the leadership election.
In one of his first interviews since announcing his leadership bid, Delia said he doesn’t envision a return to the Nationalist Party for Debono, a former MP whose vote against the 2013 Budget effectively brought down the last PN government.
Since then, Debono had been using his Facebook profile to criticise Delia and to challenge him to face him in a public debate, and recently also started posting video blogs on the matter.
“Can someone from his confused flock of supporters pass this invitation on to him?” he said in one post. “Repeatedly speaking about me in a fora where I cannot respond is HAMALLAGNI, UNEDUCATED and RUDE. If you want to speak about me, then face me and I guarantee that you will be left lost for words.”
However, Debono has now removed all references to Delia and the PN leadership election from his Facebook wall, and said in a status he has decided to stop commenting about the leadership race.
“I never wanted to return to the PN and I currently have no intention of doing so, but I thank the thousands of genuine people who encouraged me to return,” he said. “It doesn’t make a difference to me who becomes the new PN leader, but I will say Delia rashly spoke too much about me and other people, due to his lack of experience. It seems he knows he made a mistake and is disappointed by it, and indeed publicly declared on Xtra over a month ago he is ready to meet me over lunch.”
He finished his status by teaching Delia a lesson – “people aren’t switches which can be switched on and off at will, and he must be less rash when speaking out”.
Franco Debono issues lengthy right of reply
I make reference to the story on lovinmalta entitled ”Delia’s Harsh Critic Has Cleaned His Facebook Of All Trash-Talk”
First of all some people might think lovinmalta is a trash site. I beg to differ. I think it is an interesting site that is aware of the demarcation lines between information, satire and trash.
Secondly what lovinmalta describes as trashtalk, were arguments I have been raising and which, unfortunately haven’t been raised or discussed by lovinmalta site itself. Most of these arguments were raised in vlogs that had close to 100,000 views is four or five days.
Some of the arguments were the following – How did Delia come to be described as a good debater when he hasn’t yet participated in a debate with a political adversary? Why did Delia not contest the last general election on the Bkara district when asked to do so by the Nationalist Party, even when former minister Tonio Fenech decided to pull out thus creating a great opportunity for Delia? Was it because some wanted to weaken the party so much as to lead to a big defeat that would make a change in leadership unavoidable? When was the Delia clique formed? Do such cliques form in a few daays or do mthey take months or years to form? Obviously considering people like PN asst general secretary are involved, the answer to that question has huge implications. How does Delia expect to be co-opted to Parliament by a PN Executive Committee with which he is at loggerheads and when the Administrative Concil has asked him to pull out?
Are these arguments and similar ones I had been making in the past weeks trash talk or issues which lovinmalta should be discussing for the benefit of its readers or was it Tim Diacono’s lack of experience Ipolitical matters lead him to dismiss such important and crucial issues as trashtalk. I have no doub the vast majority of readers would beg to differ.
Moreover it is unfair to give wrong and warped impressions about my criticism of Delia. It was him who dragged me in the argument due to inexperience and bad judgment in his very first interview and to mention me in subsequent interviews where I could not reply. Does lovinmalta condone and approve such attitude? Doesnt’ lovinmalta think that is inappropriate, unethical and in very bad taste, repeatedly mentioning someone in his absence when he could not reply and chickening out when that person challenges to a debate face to face?
Moreover the least lovinmalta could do is to at least translate faithfully what I wrote, and since lovinmalta failed to do so I will have to do that myself. Conveniently omitting some sentences from an argument could change the whole argument. My Facebook post was prompted by two invitations from Newsbook which I declined and I proceeded to explain why. and this is what I wrote in full, yesterday 14 th September , two days before the election –
‘I would like to thank Newsbook for invitations to two discussions, but as I had decalred in the past days I am not going to comment any further on the PN leadership elections. I take the opportunity to state the following – I never said I wished to go back to the Nationalist Party and have no intention of doing so at present, but I would like to thank those thousands of people who genuinely encouraged me to do so. For me it makes no difference who will be leader. Regarding Delia I will simply state the following – he rushed and made wrong declarations about me and others due to lack of political experience. It seems he knows that was a mistake and he regretted. He spoke to many people in this sense and even publicly on Xtra over a month ago where he decalered he would be ready to discuss with me even over lunch. I wanted to give Delia a lesson – people are not a switch, which one can put on and off at will. Moreover one should not rush in his decisions and declarations. It seems he regretted his actions and learnt the lesson. Now we can talk. Thus, whilst I have an opinion as to who is most fit to be PN leader, I take the opportunity to wish both contestants the best of luck’.
There is a fine line between satire, criticism and trash. If lovinmalta really wanted to discuss my statements I have no doubt they would be spoilt for choice to find so many declarations to journalists like Chris Peregin in the past about major reforms which have come to be implemented and situations in the PN that I predicted and for which I tried to prescribe remedies, which would have practically spared the nationalist Party so much of the catastrophic situation it is facing today.
Moreover if lovinmalta really want to put Delia’s comments in their proper context, or investigate their validity, they could also make reference to a recent survey conducted by Marmara’ last June when more than 70% of PN voters think that I should have been given more space to work when in Parliament, more than 50% of Nationalist voters think that I was right in my proposals and critisims when an mp and more than 40% of Nationalist voters are of the opinion that I would be a valid candidate for some leadership post in the PN. Considering the recent hostility shown by the party in my regards the results are not only overwhelming but could also throw important light as to how and why PN ended in the current catastrophic state.
It is a pity that lovinmalta rather than finding space to discuss these important issues, chose to waste it-s readers’ time by reporting petty issues. Probably it would have been much more interesting for the readers to discuss the merits of the arguments raised rather than petty issues.
Who do you think will win the PN leadership election tomorrow? Let us know in the comments section
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