Neither Robert Abela nor Chris Fearne are credible on good governance, Adrian Delia says

The two Labour contestants hoping to become Malta's next Prime Minister, Robert Abela and Chris Fearne, are not credible on good governance measures they hope to implement, Opposition Leader Adrian Delia said.

Speaking at the Birkirkara Nationalist Party club on Sunday, Delia said that both Fearne and Abela recently agreed that Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar would be removed if they were elected Prime Minister.

"Both Abela and Fearne agreed on one thing, that they would both remove Lawrence Cutajar from Police Commissioner if elected. Where were you when the PN told you that he needs to be removed? You are not credible," Delia said.

He added that Cutajar was guilty of allowing criminals to take over the country and that if Cutajar had any shred of decency he would resign of his own accord and shoulder responsibility. 

A court recently heard how Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's former chief of staff Keith Schembri was feeding sensitive security information to Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech, charged with masterminding the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. 

"In the last six years, institutions like the Attorney General, which are supposed to protect us did the opposite, and chose to cover for big businesses and dirty money," Delia said.

He insisted that it's the PN who should be trusted with running the country after a number of PN proposals were published during an Extraordinary General Council. These include: the election of a Police Commissioner and Attorney General via a two-thirds majority of parliament.

The proposals speak about good governance and the need for autonomous insitutions. Amongst these proposals is the proposition that the sale of citizenship scheme be stopped and the Permanent Commission Against Corruption be strengthened.

The PN proposed that parties be funded by the state so that future politics be freed from any conflict of interest. State broadcasting would be impartial, the document proposes, giving space to all parties and social partners. Civil society should be strengthened.

"The first step is to remove all those who took over the government and did irreparable damage to our country. The second step is to reform the Nationalist Party. We are presenting a blueprint for a country that has the tools to move forward with conviction that what happened to Malta in recent years would never happen again," Delia said.

Delia spoke of the importance of a free press and that the PN is open to criticism and would never attempt to silence journalists or protestors. 

He criticised the Labour electoral campaign of 2013, which saw a Labour government elected with a landslide majority with the cry of 'Malta Taghna Lkoll.'

"A Labour administration was all about taking as much of our country as possible. What the PN wants is to give back, what we can hand back to our country. The economic successes of this government were nothing but the fruit of previous PN administrations, which is now deteriorating because of what this government has allowed to happen," Delia said.