Grech speaks week since election result: ‘PN has good future ahead of it’

Opposition leader Bernard Grech has spoken for the first time since last Sunday’s election in which Malta re-elected Labour to power, despite the lowest ever turnout in Maltese political history.

Grech told Nationalist Party radio station Net FM in a brief intervention that he was working to strengthen his party, despite his inability to close the gap with the ruling Labour Party at the 2022 elections.

Both parties polled less votes than in the 2017 and 2013 elections, but now stand separated by a gulf of 39,000 votes.

“We started our work from day one since the election result. We now have the responsibility of representing those 123,000 who voted for the PN and some 50,000 who did not participate in this election,” Grech said, who will be recontesting for the party leadership.

“We are looking to strengthen the party, which we believe has a good future ahead of it.”

Grech said he would strive to understand why 20% of the Maltese electorate stayed away from the polls in the elections.

“There is a strong message of abstention to both parties, and we are obliged to understand why these voters did not want to go to the polls. And this is a lack of trust in our political system. I want a system that inspires trust in people, who are ready to trust in politicians.”

Grech also said he had managed to push forward new faces for the PN’s parliamentary group, which saw voters select new, younger MPs.

“My message has always been that my mission is to unite the party, which I think I have managed to achieve, and to renew it – the electorate has responded to this positively, by electing new candidates. This election has allowed the PN to regenerate with new MPs, and this process will continue.”