PN’s 'distortion of reality' symptomatic of an opposition out of ideas, Muscat says

The distortion of facts, outright inventions and insensitivity being shown by the Nationalist Party were all symptomatic of an opposition that has run out of ideas, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister was addressing a political activity in Zabbar where he accused the Nationalist party of no longer understanding what people wanted from their representatives.

“It's a campaign where we are seeing more than ever before an Opposition with no ideas,” Muscat said. “Inventions, the distortion of reality and insensitivity…They are so detached from what people are feeling that they don’t realise how even one word can be extremely hurtful. They have become detached from people and can’t understand it.”

This had already been evident in the run up to the last general election where the PN had “come up with a lie” which the country today knows to have been based on falsified documents, Muscat said.  

Muscat said he had started his day in Gozo, where he visited work on the Barts medical school. “Up until a few months they would try and discourage us by saying that all we got was a hole. Go and see it today, it’s a beautiful medical school which is being built by our strategic partners Steward Health Care.”  

Once completed, the school, which he said would be completed by the end of the year and which had already seen an investment of €26 million, would be among the best in Europe.

“The government hasn’t spent a single cent,” he said, insisting that the school was being built as part of the agreement entered into by the government for the running of three of Malta’s hospitals.

The agreement, Muscat said, had allowed Malta to attract one of the best medical schools to its shores. He told those present that just today he had found out that Barts had considered Malta for the first time on the suggestion of a Maltese specialist.

Similarly, Muscat said that today he had also visited a company specialising video game development, which he said had also come to Malta on the suggestion of a Maltese individual.

“They were both people who, at the first opportunity, felt the need to say something good about their country. This is what having Malta in your heart means,” he said.

This contrasted with the actions of PN MEPs, who he said had made it their mission to undermine the country over the past five years. The country, he said, was disgusted by the MEPs’ behaviour.

Turning to the local council elections, Muscat again accused the PN of trying to deny those from the locality the right to vote for the local representatives.

Speaking ahead of the Prime Minister, MEP candidate Alfred Sant, stressed the need for a more social Europe, and one which stands shoulder to shoulder with trade unions in order to strengthen workers’ rights across the bloc.

Sant said that the country was lucky that under Muscat’s leadership, enough wealth had been created for there to be enough to distribute to those who needed. More needed to be done to ensure that wealth reached all those who needed, he said, but this can’t happen unless the economy continues to grow.

He acknowledged that the country’s success was impacting those who were more vulnerable, but said that while some were being negatively impacted, others had also done well.

Turning to the European Parliament, Sant stressed that MEPs needed to defend Malta’s interests. MEPs representing both parties needed to be united in this, he said, adding that Malta’s track record during the last legislature had been “scandalous”.

“We were the only country that was divided,” he said, adding that when push came to shove, PN MEPs had shown themselves to be more interested in undermining the country than having a united front.