The beginning of the end...

I am writing this after confirmation that the Yes vote prevailed. This newspaper has good reason to celebrate. We are the only media house to have taken a consistently clear stand in favour of divorce since its inception, in 1999. At times we were alone.

This victory places Malta back into Europe.

The anti-divorce campaign was organised and clearly financed by the Nationalist Party and the Church to ridicule the Yes campaign. It was a no campaign which was fuelled by fear and lies.

The Prime Minister knew yesterday evening the PN would lose. So much so that the bishops issued their silliest statement ever, an apology which seals the mediocrity that makes the Church in Malta what it is, an apology that continues to humiliate the Church.

It was the the Prime Minister who took a stand against divorce. It was he who pushed his party to back the no vote, and it was he who allowed his party to back the Church in its shameful campaign.

If the Church was a democratic organisation, Mgr Anton Gouder would be tendering his resignation and Gozo bishop Mario Grech would be asking to be transferred to the Gabon and Fr Joe Borg retiring to a monastery.

But back to Lawrence Gonzi, it is not me who should call for his resignation but his own party. He no longer holds the high moral ground and he no longer holds his party together. This is the end of GonziPN.

Someone should tell Gonzi that he has lost hold of his party. There are two parties: the rural conservative PN and the urban PN which is detached from Gonzi's reality.

The next step in parliament which should lead to the introduction of divorce should be smooth.  One hopes that parliamentarians Beppe Fenech Adami and Austin Gatt will go back on their word and vote for the bill.

The campaign was won thanks to the incredible energy of the few who ran the Yes campaign, and the influence Joseph Muscat had on the Labourites who would have otherwise voted NO but instead opted to stay at home.