Simon Busuttil: 'PN open to all those who are against Joseph Muscat'

The upcoming elections will be “a fight between good and evil,” according to Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil.

“The fight is not between red and blue but between good and evil, the truth and the false… we must recognise that we may have erred in the past, but today we have learnt our lessons,” Busuttil told party faithful in Birgu.

“We have to welcome people of different beliefs and what unites us is a common cause: a coalition against corruption opening the doors to anyone who wants to join us. Our challenge is to clean the country from the corruption.”

He refrained from mentioning any names but Busuttil’s speech was aimed at placating hard-core Nationalists who have expressed their opposition to having Salvu Mallia run on the PN ticket. Over the past weeks, conservatives and PN supporters took to Facebook to express their disapproval of Mallia’s ways, with some claiming that his approach and discourse was “not the PN way”.

But Mallia is on the warpath with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, a mission which is enough to unite him with the PN.

Busuttil reiterated that the PN needed to open up to different people, including people who in the past might have never supported the party. Describing the next 13 months as “a marathon”, Busuttil insisted on the PN’s need to open up to newcomers.

Comparing him to a salesman, the opposition leader said Muscat would have been sued for false advertising if he owned a shop: “Consumers would have shunned his shop because he would have promised one thing, and did another. But Muscat is a politician and the only thing that you can do is reply with your vote.”

Busuttil also took aim at the Prime Minister’s handling of the Panama Papers revelations, reiterating that Muscat, his chief of staff Keith Schembri and OPM minister Konrad Mizzi should have resigned.

“What they did was wrong and there was only one way they would have filled the Panamanian accounts… with corruption,” Busuttil insisted to people’s applause.

He also insisted that Malta did not need the gas-fired power station and accused Enemed of stealing people’s money with the latest increase in fuel prices. “Power stations who do not buy their diesel from Enemed have not raised their prices,” he said.

Reminding the party faithful that he will fight for what he believes in, Busuttil said he stood up for the national interest when he told the European Commission that “the Maltese were disappointed”.

“I am not one who resorts to insults or to stamp my feet but I will fight for what I believe in, even with the European Commission.”

On Wednesday, the PN leader told the College of Commissioners that Brussels should find it unacceptable for an EU minister to have an account in Panama: “We haven't seen anything from the European Commission and you still have nothing to say about it, and this is disappointing to the Maltese people.”

Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, replied that the Commission does not interfere “in matters of subsidiarity”.