[WATCH] Gonzi schedules crucial budget vote for 9 May, Franco Debono demands resignation

Additional reporting by Karl Stagno-Navarra and Miriam Dalli

Updated at 5:43pm with Prime Minister's comments and Franco Debono's reaction.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has announced that a vote on the money bill to implement the 2012 budget measures will be taken on 9 May, together with a vote on the parliamentary resolution to transfer the leases of the airport and the Vallette cruise terminal to Malita Investments plc, the special purpose vehicle that will finance the City Gate project.

His announcement was met with a renewed call for his resignation from Nationalist MP Franco Debono, who is now in open defiance of the party's official stand.

Gonzi emerged from an urgently convened parliamentary group meeting at the PN's headquarters saying that the Budget Measures Implementation Bill would take precedence over any other motions, namely the Opposition's motion on home affairs and justice which Nationalist MP Franco Debono on Monday insisted should take place imminently.

Gonzi also said he would not entertain Debono's challenge to a public debate: "This is not about public debates or challenges. Any such business must take place within parliament."

The budget measures bill is a money bill that requires the government side's entire support to pass. Unless Gonzi secures his one-seat majority, the government will have to call early elections.

In a reaction, Debono questioned the urgency of the vote: "Why all this urgency now? The prime minister did not need a four-week recess to take this decision, if this vote was so urgent. Lawrence Gonzi should resign because he is inflicting the same damage his uncle [Archbishop Mikiel Gonzi] inflicted upon the Church, on the political class. He is bringing parliament into disrepute. Who does he think he is: a king? He is treating people like scarabs."

Backbencher Franco Debono has told MaltaToday he is challenging the Prime Minister to a public debate "to discuss all points [he] raised in recent months in any forum he deems fit".

The statements were made to this newspaper while the PN parliamentary group was in session, following the MP's defiant statement to Lawrence Gonzi in parliament on Monday evening.

"I am inviting the prime minister as well as any three ministers for a public debate on the issues I have been raising," the backbencher said. "The prime minister can choose any topic he deems fit, being used to dictating things as he is. He can bring the entire Cabinet."

Debono is not attending this afternoon's urgent parliamentary meeting after the MP yesterday demanded that an Opposition motion on home affairs and justice is debated before taking a vote on the crucial Budget Measures Implementation Bill.

Earlier on Tuesday morning Debono told MaltaToday: "The irony is that a minister uses all his powers to block a motion censoring his performance while at the same time present legislation in parliament which he expects to be debated in parliament.'

Home Affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici is the Leader of the House and has been responsible for various filibustering attempts in prolonging crucial votes since Debono announced his intention to vote against the government back in January, after a cabinet reshuffle.

Another Nationalist backbencher, Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, today posted a status updated on his Facebook wall indicating that elections for the Gonzi government were now "inevitable".

"Prolonging the inevitable has now not only become humiliating... it is not in the national interest," he said, referring to the possibility that with the Budget money bill having to be voted upon by the latest on 14 May, Lawrence Gonzi may have to face elections by the autumn.

Yesterday evening, Debono confronted the Prime Minister and insisted with him that the motion censoring Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici should be debated before the crucial budget vote on May 14.

The Prime Minister was overheard telling Debono, that he should wait. To which Debono said that he had enough of waiting. He then crossed the floor and talked to Leader of Opposition Joseph Muscat.

In further comments to MaltaToday Debono said:"The legislation he expects to be debated is on Parliament's agenda while the censoring motion is not.

Questioned why he would not be attending he added: "I do not see the point in attending parliamentary group meetings where decisions are already taken by self-appointed technocrat or some other 'advisors'."