Muscat ‘will regret’ Dalli, Debono jobs

The Prime Minister will live to regret his decision to give former Nationalist MPs – rebel backbencher Franco Debono and former European Commissioner John Dalli – government posts, according to Lawrence Gonzi. “I think he’s making a big mistake and he will have to pay an enormous price in the future,” the former premier said, stopping short of elaborating. In a retrospective interview with The Sunday Times of Malta since bowing out of politics after 25 years, the former PN leader said this decision completely contradicted Labour’s pre-electoral battle cry to reward meritocracy. “It’s the worst thing one could possibly do... We now find out that the concept of meritocracy is completely different from what we had imagined it would be,” he said. Mr Dalli has long criticised Dr Gonzi, even suggesting there could be the hand of his people behind the snus scandal which led to his resignation as European Commissioner. Dr Gonzi vehemently denied these allegations and insisted that on the contrary “we tried our very best to try to get the whole of Malta out from what was becoming an embarrassing situation for us all”. Asked what went through his mind when he heard about Mr Dalli’s...