Opposition MPs walk out of Tuesday’s parliamentary debate

Opposition MPs walked out of parliament again on Tuesday as the house continues its debate on a government motion censuring Nationalist MP Karol Aquilina for his behaviour a week prior. 

The same MPs had already walked out of parliament on Monday to protest the motion. 

Before the motion started being debated, Opposition leader Bernard Grech made a brief statement condemning the motion.

He said the motion is anti-democratic and intended to censure the government's critics. He called it a “fascist motion”, insisting the Opposition could not accept being part of the debate.

During an interview on Net TV the same day, Grech said Robert Abela and his government is using parliament as their propaganda tool.

Speaking to journalists after parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Robert Abela slammed Grech for choosing to “abdicate from a democratic debate”.

“They had the opportunity to do two things: retract the insulting words Karol Aquilina used against the Speaker, like when he said he is not capable of thinking, or debate why they felt it was justified to use such words in the country’s highest institution,” he said.

He also quoted Labour media in saying the Nationalist Party’s parliamentary group was divided on the issue.

“You had a number of MPs who were not ready to support Aquilina, and you had a number who were. After hours of debate, they could not come to agreement on what they should do, and so they decided to walk out of the House,” Abela said.