Coleiro Preca changes her mind, ‘I will contest general elections’
Labour MP who campaigned against divorce says she will run for elections after all.
Shadow health minister Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said she will be contesting the next general elections after all, just two weeks since she publicly declared she was not running again.
The Labour MP said she “could not ignore” the support she found from constituents and families in the last weeks.
Coleiro Preca had campaigned against divorce and announced her intention not to run for the general elections soon after the referendum result in which 53% approved a divorce bill.
But she said Labour leader Joseph Muscat’s declaration that she “was in conformity with the party line” and his appeal to her to be part of Labour’s team “made it incumbent upon me to rethink my decision not to contest.”
She said Muscat’s “consistent politics” had made her proud to be a Labour MP. She said Labour had not taken a partisan stand on divorce, and allowed its MPs a free vote. “The PN’s exponents are trying to use me as the casualty of the mistake their own party committed, when it did not give its MPs the freedom of conscience on divorce.”
Coleiro-Preca is a former secretary-general of Labour and was a candidate for the party leadership in the last elections that saw Joseph Muscat elected leader. As one of Labour’s anti-divorce MPs, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca was a supporter of the referendum. “I feel this is an issue that the people must give us MPs a mandate for us to decide according to their wishes… This is a matter of conscience, but I cannot impose it upon others without a mandate from the people. And it should be an informed decision by the people... I believe in a discussion that is well-informed, that goes beyond crusades and fanaticism, but I’ve been disappointed so far.”