PN leader: ‘Malta deserves better than the Labour Party’

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil mounted a scathing attack on Labour leader and prime minister Joseph Muscat, in a meeting held for party activists as part of the European Parliament election campaign.

Addressing the PN councillors as the party’s general council came to an end, Busuttil accused Labour of having deceived the electorate.

“While the Labour Party has deceived the electorate by trying to implement measures behind people’s back, the PN has always been faithful to its core values: humility, seriousness, and honesty,” Busuttil said, whose party yesterday approved its manifesto for the EP campaign.

“The PN does not sell its values,” Busuttil said, claiming that the difference between Labour and the PN was not even more pronounced.

“Malta deserves better than the Labour Party. Contrary to the Labour Party, the PN will not use the country for its vote; it is there to serve, and not to exploit the people,” he said.

Busuttil said the PN wanted to take the country forward by respecting people’s intelligence and winning over their hearts and minds, accusing Muscat of having deceived the electorate with its electoral promises.

He insisted that it was the PN, which currently holds two seats out of six EP seats, that was the underdog in the elections.

Busuttil has set his ambitions to win three seats in the elections, although this may not guarantee him a majority of votes.

He lambasted the government for halting a cooperation agreement with private hospitals, saying that the past week’s agreement with St James Hospital for free MRI scans meant that the government had “realised that the PN’s politics were the best way forward.”

Busuttil even took Labour to task over its socialist credentials, claiming the party was discriminating against individuals. “Just like the government is opting to employ people from its inner circle and ignore soaring unemployment, the government is also discriminating in the health sector. It is obscene that the government is discriminating against those who are most vulnerable, just so it distributes medicines according to political allegiance,” he said.

Busuttil took umbrage at what he claimed was the “incestuous” relationship between the government and the Labour Party.

“The Labour Party is now using the same billboards that were used by the government. Labour’s MEP campaign is being funded by the taxpayers. Notwithstanding this abuse of laws, the government care less about this, and instead it is taking the law in its own hands.”

Taking exception at Joseph Muscat’s claims that the Labour Party is an “underdog,” Busuttil accused the prime minister of insulting the people’s intelligence.  “If the Labour Party is an underdog, then what is the Nationalist Party? This election is not about either party, but instead, it is an election to elect Malta’s next MEPs,” he said, contradicting his initial claim at the start of the EP campaign that the election was about “sending Labour a message on its first year in government.”

He criticised the government for ignoring the rate of unemployment, and pumping public employment levels. “While Labour’s inner circle are being employed within the civil service, the rest of the country is getting the short end of the stick,” he said.