Nationalist Party raises €516,775 in telethon

The Nationalist Party raised another €516,775 in a fund-raising telethon yesterday.

In December the PN had collected €490,546 in another fund-raising event before the electoral campaign kicked off in January,

With just one month to go to polling day, Prime Minister and PN leader Lawrence Gonzi thanked supporters for their donations.

While stressing that the PN is facing an uphill struggle, Gonzi said "wait for us, we are on our way back."

Today, Labour will hold its own fund-raising event on the party's television station, One.

The telethons come bang in the middle of the nine-week electoral campaign, just weeks after the two parties collectively amassed over €1 million in similar telethons in December.

Last week, the PN appealed for donations by putting up adverts during political broadcasts on its television station. This came in the wake of previous appeals by PN secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier, who sent out a bulk email claiming that the PN was being "heavily outspent" in the electoral campaign.

"As you have undoubtedly realised, we are being heavily outspent in this campaign," Borg Olivier said, in a stark resemblance to the 'Labour is rich, PN is poor' mailshot sent in July.