Updated | Muscat hopes PN's new leader ditches Busuttil’s 'negative attitude'

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said that he hopes that whoever is elected to be leader of the Nationalist Party will change the negative attitude employed by outgoing leader Simon Busuttil.

Muscat said that as Prime Minister he was obliged to work with everyone but hoped that Busuttil’s successor would not adopt a disruptive strategy that sought to harm the government and the country.

“Many people have been commenting about how there was not much to choose from in the crop of leadership contenders,” said Muscat. “This makes me proud of the Labour Party because we have had the opposite problem in every election we have had.”

He said that if anything, the Labour Party’s problem was that its candidates were too good, with the three candidates for Labour Party deputy leader all having been superior than those vying for leader of the PN.

Muscat was speaking during a brief phone-in on ONE Radio where he said ultimately what interested people were jobs and their quality of life. Muscat said the government would continue working to solve problems such as the high cost of living and renting, the problems with the country’s infrastructure and waste management systems, as well as much needed social transformations.

Muscat noted that last week, the legal notice allowing same-sex marriages had been published, and that tomorrow applications will be closing for the Labour Party's LEAD programme, which will seek to ensure equal representation of men and women among the Labour Party's election candidates. 

Nationalist Party reaction

In a brief statement issued by party's outgoing administration in response to the Prime Minister comments, the Nationalist Party said that ever decision it had taken and each one of its actions in the past years were always in the best interests of the “Maltese and Gozitan people”.

“The fight against corruption rather than being negative, is positive, and in the interest of all families whose quality of life is impacted when it is the few who benefit at the expense of the many,” it said.

The PN said it was disappointing that even as the party is going through a transitional period, the Prime Minister was choosing to continue sowing division.