[WATCH] Mark Anthony Sammut: ‘Not right time for PN to change its leader and fragment’

This is not the right time for the Nationalist Party to change leader and be fragmented, newly elected MP Mark Anthony Sammut believes.

Sammut said that party leader Bernard Grech should be allowed to continue despite the electoral defeat.

“In the year-and-a-half he has been leader, Bernard Grech did important changes and this included the regeneration of the parliamentary group, and I believe he should be allowed to continue building on this foundation,” Sammut said during a debate on TVM News Plus’ Xtra, hosted by Saviour Balzan.

Sammut, who was elected on two districts, is one of several new faces elected to parliament on the PN ticket. But his personal success was a bitter sweet pill to swallow given the PN’s massive electoral defeat, the third in a row.

“Despite the result, we should not throw away all that has been achieved or the vision outlined in the electoral programme, which can be built upon but this is not a moment for the party to fragment,” Sammut said.

He insisted that the party must reflect on the result, try to understand people more and discuss changes to its internal structures: “The PN has to be humble enough to see how it can do better and understand better the electorate… There was abuse by the government during the electoral campaign but we cannot justify the result through this... reforms and changes within the PN have to happen but not necessarily in the leadership.”

Asked what he meant by abuse, Sammut said that apart from dishing out cheques during the electoral campaign, he knew of people who were informed on election day by union representatives that they had negotiated a good pay packet, and others who were given a contract for social housing that had yet to be built.

“This is abuse but the PN has to focus on what it can do best and the first priority must be to focus on its internal structures,” he said.

(From left) Mark Anthony Sammut, journalist Dione Borg and One News head Edward Montebello with Xtra host Saviour Balzan

But Sammut also added that within the PN there should be discussions on policy but once a decision is taken everyone should follow the party line. “This is what we have lacked in the past.”

Sammut said that corruption interested people but the manner by which an argument is put that has to change. “People may not like a certain tone.”

Veteran PN journalist Dione Borg insisted the election was characterised by a democratic imbalance with the Labour Party using public funds to bolster its campaign.

However, he insisted the election defeat was an accumulation of different reasons and the PN’s first priority had to be strengthening its internal structures.

One News head Edward Montebello said people looked at the respective parties' manifestos and realised that the Labour Party proposal was serious, costed and deliverable unlike the mixed messages that were being sent by the PN.