Frank Portelli, erstwhile PN leadership candidate, is all over Facebook teaching us all a lesson in party loyalty and unity after losing an electoral race. He shows us how it should be done by firing grape-shot in the general direction of anyone he dislikes in the process hitting innocent bystanders like there’s no tomorrow.
In the meantime, his page has become the informal head-quarters of the racist, fascist, bigoted redneck dredges that cheer on people who like him or like Norman Lowell deliver their speeches in the rhetorical equivalent of the glory suit of Ku Klux Klansmen.
Nothing new there.
What is fascinating is how he has adopted the mantle of the prince of the anti-establishment rabble. And by establishment he does not mean Joseph Muscat and the people established in authority, mind you. He has in his cross-hairs Simon Busuttil and an imaginary cabal of faceless conspirators Busuttil has around him to do what is hard to imagine.
This campaign has seen some oddly angry chest thumping about ‘wanting the party back’ from this fantastical conspiracy.
Frank Portelli was relatively late to that party. But he has since not just joined the chorus but is now practically one of the soloists on the front line.
Now anyone who has anything to say about him, has been elected to the conspiracy. All of these Busuttillian evil-doers are signed up to this clique that has run away with the party and taken it away from him and his 10 voters in the general council.
The 10 like-minded individuals who voted for him must have genuinely thought he was the best choice and that is surely within their realm of rights. But to think that he is speaking on behalf of 10 people, the disproportionate harm he is causing to the party is put in stark perspective.
Frank Portelli thinks it’s a good idea to serve the interests of the Adrian Delia campaign by spinning to even harsher terms the latter’s speeches on hidden hands, cliques and the outgoing leadership’s supposed effort to frustrate his chances of winning the leadership race.
Frank Portelli did not always think backing anyone from outside the party to lead it was a good idea.
Even when he was filing his nomination for the candidature he was personally and loudly begging, flattering and cajoling Simon Busuttil to withdraw his resignation and stay on as leader. He had no complaints about any cliques then. That wasn’t so long ago. It was a few weeks ago. Adrian Delia had by then long announced and started formally campaigning.
If there had been a clique Frank Portelli would have well and truly known then. And yet he wanted Simon Busuttil to stay on. Until he changed his mind and backed a different horse.
How can anyone speak of fickle crowds when their leaders are practically schizoid?