The PN will become ‘radically different’ - Simon Busuttil

12 new candidates will be contesting the next general elections with the Nationalist Party for the first time. Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said that they are part of the party’s renewal plans.  

“The PN is at the beginning of a renewal process that will eventually result in a radically different party,” Busuttil said.

The PN’s secretary general Chris Said told Sunday newspaper ILLUM that the PN began its renewal process as soon as it lost the 2013 general elections.

“We have a new leader, new vice-leaders and new secretary generals,” Said said. “We changed the way we behave around people, and now we have our first set of new candidates for the general elections.”

“These new candidates will get an early chance to meet people, speak to them about what challenges they face in their everyday lives and help with our policies along with the party so that they can be presented to the public in the coming years,” Said said. “I am certain that the Maltese and Gozitan population want a proper style of politics and that is what these new candidates are offering.”

Said disagrees that the public are not ready to meet these candidates as a result of ‘electoral fatigue’.

“Malta is a small country and I’m sure that the people want personal contact with their politicians,” Said said. “Some people have come up with excuses of electoral fatigue but then they still deliver partisan speeches every Sunday.”

The Labour Party’s deputy leader Toni Abela said that the party will be announcing their new candidates ‘at the right time’.

The PN’s 12 new candidates are Alan Abela Wadge, Simone Aquilina, Dounia Borg, Roslyn Borg, Charlene Camilleri Zarb, Charlot Cassar, Ryan Mercieca, Aaron Micallef, Angelo Micallef, Alessia Zammit Psaila, Graziella Schembri and Justin Schembri.

Read the full feature article, complete with short interviews with each of the 12 candidates, in Sunday’s edition of ILLUM.