‘We must recognise the signs of the times’ – de Marco

Outgoing Nationalist minister Mario de Marco says Nationalist Party must better recognise ‘radical’ changes in society it helped bring about.

11 March 2013, 12:00am
by Nestor Laiviera

1 min read

Mario de Marco speaking to MaltaToday's Jurgen Balzan.

Outgoing nationalist Minister Mario de Marco says that the Nationalist Party must better recognise the radical changes that have taken place in Maltese society over the past years.

De Marco was speaking in the counting hall as the first counts had begun rolling out.

Speaking to MaltaToday about the electoral result, which saw Labour winning by a landslide victory as consistently predicted by MaltaToday's own surveys, de Marco said that "the result is a clear one."

"We have to take stock of the result. We must understand the message, and that Maltese society has radically changed."

"We probably had a hand in bringing about this change, and we must accept it," he added. "We must recognise better the signs of the times."

De Marco however held back from commenting on what led to the PN's sound defeat, saying that a cooling down period was called for.

"At this stage we should allow the dust to settle. I do not wish for us to on witch-hunts or devolve into finder pointing," de Marco said. "We need to analyse the result calmly."

He also said that the PN's foundation and history "are strong enough to ensure that the party is able to emerge for this process stronger than it is now."

"However I must still accept collegial responsibility of the government for this result," de Marco said.

More from Nestor Laiviera

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Mario de Marco would make a fine PN leader. Moderate, accessible, reasonable, and always ready to arrive at a compromise. His leadership would be a great complementary to the new PL Government on the other side of the parliamentary fence.

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demarco for a pn leader.

Priscilla Darmenia •

"We must recognise the signs of the times". Flahhar stenbah xi hadd mill-Partit Nazjonalista. Forsi, forsi jghamlu xi haga issa.

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Allow me to set you on a possible path. All the empty rhetoric blurted out by Beppe Fenech Adami, Tonio Fenech and Clyde Puli' helped tremendously to ensure a seal on the voting intentions that had been brewing in the minds of unbiased, uncommitted intelligent voters, who wanted to, amongst other things, signal their disgust at being treated like imbeciles by these empty talkers. You are right in asking for a longish cooling down period as the voting patterns demonstrates a great lack of clear thinking by Party supporters.

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Suppost kellhom izommu widnejhom ma' l-art - hekk qalu snin ilu imma minflok zammewhom fis-shab. Il-poplu wera li l-politika tal-PN kienet wahda divisiva u tal-passat. Jghaddi ftit zmien iehor u jergaw jibdew bit-tattika tat-tghawwig, ma jitghallmu qatt!