PN’s past and present is guarantee for a better future – Gonzi

The PN electoral programme's proposals would only come to fruition if the country's economy remains safe and secure, PN leader Lawrence Gonzi said. He stressed that the PN's record in the past and the present was the best guarantee for a better future.

Addressing the PN faithful in a dialogue in San Gwann, the Prime Minister warned that the country should choose very carefully who to vote for on 9 March and likened the choice to a decision on who to trust children with.

Arguing that the PN was in government for the large part of the last 25 years because of Labour's failure to offer a better alternative and the PN's ability to offer a vision and convince the country, Gonzi said "Do not vote PN because your grandparents did so, do not vote PN because we have been in government for 15 years, vote PN because we have proved time and time again that we were always capable of making the right decisions."

Thanking the noisy crowd for the "injection of energy" they gave the party, Gonzi said that the PN was determined to convey its message in the remaining  four weeks of the campaign and win the election for the benefit of the elderly persons, children and young people who were in San Gwann to greet him.

Gonzi was speaking during a party event in San Gwann, in which the ninth district PN candidates addressed the sizeable and boisterous crowd on PN supporters.  

PN deputy leader Simon Busuttil reiterated that the PN was not asking for the people's vote for what could be achieved in the future and not what was achieved in the past, underlining the difference between the PN's manifesto offering "another quality leap" and Labour's "invisible" manifesto which has yet to be published.

"Persons do not cite many wrong things we have done in the past years, although mistakes were committed and we apologise for all the mistakes, but people talk about the fact that we have been in government for much of the last 25 years. We have been in government for all this time because we have performed well, achieved great things and shaped the future of the country," Busuttil said.

Listing a number of embellishment projects and open-air parks and playgrounds around the island opened in the last five years, resources minister George Pullicino said that while former Labour administration created unregulated landfills at Maghtab and Qortin, Gozo, the PN administration turned them into family parks.

He added that the park in Marsascala which would be opened in coming weeks was also erected for the persons who opposed the nearby waste treatment plant for partisan reasons.

"The future five years will be determined by what people do in five seconds on 9 March. Let us choose the party which truly belongs to everyone," Pullicino said.

In an appeal to disgruntled PN voters, district heavyweight Robert Arrigo said that while voters might have faced problems of some kind in the last five years it made no sense staying at home or voting Labour on 9 March because the PN and its leader Lawrence Gonzi should not be made to pay for small shortcomings.

"Should we risk the future of our children? Should we risk the well-being of the whole country by not voting? Not voting is not worth it. It is not worth losing the Nationalist Party and this Prime Minister," Arrigo said.

On her part, the PN's executive president and new candidate Marthese Portelli hailed Nationalist education ministers who revolutionised the education system, thanks to which more and more women, products of Nationalist policies are joining the labour market while fulfilling other duties such as having a family.