Lynn Faure Chircop’s overnight conversion: no more criticism of Robert Abela after he gave her two government jobs

Former Labour candidate and Eurovision singer Lynn Faure Chircop suddenly stopped broadcasting the strong reservations she had expressed about Prime Minister Robert Abela in late spring 2021, and surprisingly began instead to sing his praises. It turns out this change of heart occurred soon after Abela gave her two government jobs.

Labour Party sources told The Shift her sudden switch came after a “private tete-a-tete” at Abela’s home in Marsascala in April 2021 after she had withdrawn her candidacy for the general elections to preserve her “clean conscience”.

Although no details have been provided on the outcome of that meeting, Faure Chircop then landed two government jobs that evidently helped change her mind.

She was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority in June 2021, and the following month she got another position as Senior Manager at the Human Rights Directorate.

Prior to her change of heart, Faure Chircop had publicly expressed her disappointment with Abela in a tearful video posted on Facebook.

Citing “changing circumstances and her desire to keep a clean conscience”, the former Eurovision singer and lawyer had said that Abela ignored her issues, apparently related to her former government job at the Social Care Standards Authority.

“You don’t want to see the evidence”, she had said, directly addressing the prime minister.

“I put all my trust in you, only for you to kick my husband and me out the way you did.”

Reacting to Faure Chircop’s rant, Abela had announced on TV that he immediately invited Lynn to his home so that they could talk privately.

Describing Lynn and her husband as “my friends”, Abela had said that the two supported him personally during the 2017 election, as they live in his district, Qormi.

“Tomorrow she’ll come to our home to discuss the contribution she can keep giving to the PL,” Abela had told a PBS programme.

A few months later, on the prime minister’s birthday and following her two new jobs funded by taxpayers, Faure Chircop returned to social media showering praise for Abela’s “sound values”.

Faure Chircop’s father, Philip, spent years as a key official of the PN during the years in opposition under former prime minister Dom Mintoff and had joined Eddie Fenech Adami’s private secretariat as soon as the PN was returned to power in 1987.