PN leadership in final appeal to switchers

Closing off the Nationalist Party’s campaign, PN deputy leaders Beppe Fenech Adami and Mario de Marco launched an appeal to switchers, insisting that the latter’s vote is paramount to show the government that it is “incompetent in governing Malta.”

In a clear attempt to angle voters, Mario de Marco appealed to the party’s grassroots and the “hurt” Nationalists who in the March 2013 general election voted for the Labour Party.

Following the party’s “catastrophic” defeat in March – which resulted in the PN losing by a record 36,000-vote majority – the party’s grassroots had pinpointed the marginalisation of party activists from the inner circle. However, de Marco, insisted that the 14 months on, the PN has learnt from its mistakes and it has become a new party.

Nevertheless, de Marco argued that "the PN has always remained the people’s champion and the party who has always sought to safeguard the country’s best interests.”

Calling on the party’s grassroots to renew their belief in the PN, de Marco insisted that Labour’s legislation has been characterised by “awarding the incompetent, and sidelining the competent.”

Paying tribute to Labour’s “real” soldiers of steel, de Marco argued that Muscat’s championing of Cyrus Engerer was an insult to the true Labour supporters.

“Labour’s soldiers of steel faced prison for their true belief in workers, while on the other hand, Cyrus Engerer faced imprisonment for distributing pornography. But notwithstanding this, Muscat still baptised Engerer as a soldier of steel,” de Marco said.

Calling on disgruntled Labour supporters to opt for PN candidates next Saturday, de Marco took umbrage at the government for its “unfulfilled” electoral pledges, pinpointing its electoral battle cries of meritocracy, transparency and accountability as his main bones of contention.

Reiterating his claims that the Labour core has “pigged out of the state’s coffers,” PN Deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami argued that Joseph Muscat is using politics to serve himself and the Labourites, and not the country.

“Rather than placing the country at the centre of Labour’s European campaign, Muscat has instead turned this election into a personal contest between Simon Busuttil and himself,” Fenech Admai said.

“The prime minister is detached from reality. He is failing to understand that the government should not have appointed [Labour backbencher] Silvio Schembri eight jobs. It is not aware that it should not have awarded a €13,000 monthly wage to the energy minister’s wife, simply because her husband is the minister.”

Calling on the “132,000 voters who opted for PN in the last general election,” Beppe Fenech Adami stated that if the party manages to elect its third MEP, "the party as well as the country would win."

Fenech Adami’s disdain at the government’s “discrimination,” was also echoed by PN Secretary General Chris Said, who while highlighting the government’s “shortcomings”, accused Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of carrying out “political discrimination against anyone not part of Labour’s core.”

“In its first year, this government has steamrolled over everyone, even those Labour supporters. Its electoral win rushed to its head, and now the rest of the country is repeatedly getting the short end of the stick,” he said.

Rallying the party faithful, Said insisted that next Saturday’s elections are a golden opportunity for the country to convey its disappointment in the government, claiming that the country is “fed up of inequality and discrimination.”