Mqabba PN councillors to demand deputy mayor’s resignation over comment

Tension is simmering in Mqabba tonight after Partit Nazzjonalista councillors served notice that they will formally ask Deputy Mayor Marlene Micallef to step down over a remark made during Tuesday’s council meeting that many residents have branded “insensitive and unbecoming”. The comment – allegedly directed at Labour councillor Etienne Pace – was captured on the council’s live-stream and has since ricocheted across village Facebook groups, prompting a rare joint press conference by the PN’s three local councillors scheduled for tomorrow morning outside the baroque Parish of the Assumption.

According to multiple people present in the cramped council chamber beneath the village band club, Micallef interrupted Pace as he questioned the allocation of €17,000 earmarked for the upcoming L-Imnarja folk festivities. “Ejja, ma tafx taqra jew qatt ma ħriġt mill-borġ?” (“Come on, can’t you read or have you never left the hamlet?”) she is reported to have said. While Micallef later insisted the barb was “light-hearted”, Pace walked out, and by Wednesday lunchtime the clip – overlaid with Mqabba’s yellow-and-red village flag – had clocked 28,000 views on TikTok, accompanied by the hashtag #BorġTalk.

Mqabba, population 3,300, is no stranger to political theatrics. Nestled between the limestone quarries of the south and the airport flight path, the village has long prided itself on punching above its weight – producing two European Parliament presidents and nurturing festa rivalries that can out-decibel those of Żejtun. Yet beneath the brass-band bravado lies a tight-knit community where families trace lineage through feasts and quarry dust, and where an off-hand slight can reverberate like a petard in the village square.

“People here don’t forget,” says 68-year-old greengrover Ċikku Briffa, who has hawked strawberries outside the church since 1978. “My father used to say ‘kliem ma jmut qatt’ – words never die. If the deputy mayor mocked Etienne for living his whole life in the same streets his nanna swept, she mocked half the village.”

The PN’s motion, seen by this newsroom, accuses Micallef of “conduct that brings the locality into disrepute” and urges her to resign “with immediate dignity” or face a no-confidence vote at next week’s extraordinary session. For the party, already reeling from a dismal showing in the south in June’s MEP election, the saga is an awkward flashpoint. Micallef, a well-known canvasser for MP David Thake, was parachuted into Mqabba politics only two years ago after years lobbying from Valletta’s PN HQ. Her critics say she has never fully shed the “outsider” label – a potentially lethal tag in a village whose anthem boasts of “ħbitna l-għerq t’artna” (our roots sunk deep in our soil).

Mayor Renald Falzon (PL) has so far remained publicly neutral, calling for “cooler heads” and reminding councillors that Mqabba’s real battle is securing EU funds to shore up its medieval catacombs against quarry blasting. But behind the scenes, Labour activists are gleefully circulating memes of Micallef superimposed on a Ryanair jet labelled “Next flight out of the borġ”.

The timing could hardly be worse. In three weeks the village stages its famous pyrotechnic festival – a pyro-ballet that draws thousands and fills the coffers of local kazini. Already, rival committees are whispering about boycotts if Micallef presides over the opening ceremony. “No one wants politics to overshadow the fireworks,” says Emma Bezzina, secretary of the St Mary’s fireworks club. “But if she’s on the balcony people will hiss louder than the Catherine wheels.”

Micallef herself broke her silence this evening with a terse Facebook post: “I apologise unreservedly for any offence caused. My words were ill-chosen and do not reflect the respect I have for every Mqabbin, whether their family arrived in 1450 or 2020.” Yet the post’s comments section quickly turned into a referendum on her future, with one top-rated reply – from Pace’s own mother – simply reading: “Apology not accepted. #Resign”.

As the village descends into its nightly ritual of pastizzi and gossip on the church steps, the question on everyone’s lips is less whether Micallef will survive the vote than what her fate says about a community caught between preserving its past and navigating the bruising tempo of modern Maltese politics. One thing is certain: in Mqabba, the echo of a single word can drown out even the loudest petard.