‘Labour must apologise’: President emeritus Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca

The former President and popular Labour minister Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca is calling on her own party to apologise to those who bought into in its purported moral credentials.

Coleiro Preca, who became social policy minister after Labour’s historic 2013 election, called on those who have the party’s interest at heart to embark on a soul-searching exercise to establish what it stands for.

“Labour owes the country and its supporters an apology,” Coleiro Preca said in a hard-hitting commentary for MaltaToday by way of reply to two questions: what steps the party had to take to restore trust in its moral credentials; and whether she saw a risk of loss of trust in the institutions, and how can public trust be restored? 

She writes that in the wake of the latest allegations on the Labour government’s links to secret offshore companies and its major projects, the PL has to apologise “to all those who genuinely believed in its moral credentials and supported it, and to all the people of these islands”.  

She says Labour has to carry out a soul-searching exercise to establish what it stands for and whether it is a party that is “simply power-hungry and merely directed by surveys rather than by political, social and moral values”. 

The commentary was penned exclusively for MaltaToday after the newspaper approached her for her views on the current political crisis facing the country, following recent court arraignments of Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and other revelations casting a shadow on energy deals undertaken after 2013.  

Coleiro Preca says Labour must ask itself whether it is still faithful to its founding principles to support workers, the poor and the vulnerable, or if it is “simply mesmerised by any business that comes along?” 

The former President also asked the country to reflect on why people are losing trust in institutions, leaders and our political parties, warning against the demonization of civil society organisations, and calling for the strengthening of the media in recognition for its “essential role for a functioning democracy”. 

She praised the current government for making significant changes to strengthen institutions, but said more work was needed to ensure they are guided “by the principles of good governance, transparency, accountability and effective checks and balances”.