PN takes Labour leader to task over former minister’s ‘democracy’ piece

Nationalists in bid to ‘shame’ Joseph Muscat over Alex Sceberras Trigona opinion piece.

Former Labour minister Alex Sceberras Trigona is a remnant of the 1980s governments that new Labour has been trying to shed.
Former Labour minister Alex Sceberras Trigona is a remnant of the 1980s governments that new Labour has been trying to shed.

The Nationalist Party said Labour leader Joseph Muscat should sack "political dinosaurs" like former minsters Karmenu Vella, Alex Sceberras Trigona and Leo Brincat to Cabinet level, if he is to prove that his party is no longer hosting remnants of the 1980s Mintoff and Mifsud Bonnici governments.

The PN has latched on to a controversial piece published in The Times in which former Labour foreign minister Alex Sceberras Trigona, whose legacy includes drafting a secret treaty with communist North Korea for arms and police training, claimed the present government was "blatantly undemocratic" after having lost its one-seat majority.

"Muscat's description of Sceberras Trigona's article in The Times as a 'good academic exercise' is shameful and insensitive. It proves Labour won't work, and that with the likes of Alex Sceberras Trigona and Karmenu Vella it will take the country 30 years back," the PN said.

The party's billboard campaign, a rehash of the 1979 British Tories' 'Labour is not working' campaign, is telling voters Labour "will not work" and warns of rising unemployment levels under a Labour administration. On its part, Labour has accused the PN of rehashing a theme first used 33 years ago.

Writing in the Times, Sceberras Trigona - who is today serving Labour as its international secretary - claimed the additional four seats the PN government had gained by winning a relative majority by 1,500 votes, had now been lost after MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando had broken away from the party and taken up an independent seat. "Without a relative majority of votes those compensatory four extra seats are no longer due to the government. Retaining those extra four seats without any justification whatsoever is grossly unfair and manifestly unwarranted. Malta's government has now become blatantly unrepresentative and undemocratic," Sceberras Trigona wrote.

On its part, the PN today accused Sceberras Trigona of being a minister in a Labour government that ruled Malta with an iron fist - "suppressing freedom of expression, crushing the hopes and ruining the lives, of thousands of young men and women."

"Instead of showing him the door, Muscat promoted Sceberras Trigona to the very important role of Labour's international secretary. Muscat defends his man and describes the article as 'a good academic exercise'... This is proof of how insensitive Muscat is. He wants us to believe that his party has changed, and that it has now become a 'progressive movement' - which is really not the case. Labour remains the same, and it won't work," PN spokesperson Frank Psaila said.

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@Frank Psaila Just remembered that billboard in 1979 in the U.k. before Margaret Thatcher got into power 'Labour won't work'. Those days there was 1 million unemployed in the U.K. Thatcher got voted in. One and a half years later 3 million were unemployed, If it wasn't for the Falklands war, whom she knew that was going to happen beforehand. It was all planned. Proof: The Argentineans bought the Aircraft Carrier the Hermes from the British Government, ten months before the war for what, may I ask? To refurbish it as a Cruise liner perhaps? They named it 25th of May in Spanish, it was their Independence day. The retaking of the Falklands was the cause the Conservatives got back in, when they left the office, years later the unemployment sky rocketed to a disturbing amount and with high inflation.
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Patricia Marsh
I don't know ASP, neither Leo Brincat. But how anyone can convince anyone that Karmenu Vella is apolitical dinosaur? Karmenu Vella is a politician well respected from both sides of the political spectrum. Gd luck Karmenu!!
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Mhux hekk biss, min nqabad jiffalsifika dockumenti mhux talli lehaq is-sema, imma dawk ta' tahtu gew security screened, u hallew ic-chairman barra. Il-Gustizzja Nazzjonalisti "SYTLE". Ghalhekk trid issir GUSTIZZJA u nispera li l-Partit Laburista jaghmel GUSTIZZJA ma kullhadd u mhux ma zghir biss bhal ma sar taht Eddie Fenech Adami qed issir issa taht GONZI PN.
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Zack Depasquale
Ara vera dawn ta'GonziPn m'ghandhomx ma x hiex jaqbdu. Ghal informazzjoni ta'GonziPN, Dr Muscat ma ta' promotion lill-hadd, Dr Scibberras Trigona kien gie elett mid-delegati tal-Partit laburista. Fuq kollox Dr Scibberras Trigona qatt ma nqabad jiffalsifika xi dokument tal-ID card tal-Pulizija.