Updated | ‘PN changed country’s face while Labour sinks in scandals,’ Fenech Adami says

Outgoing secretary general Chris Said urged the party faithful to remain close to the Nationalist Party and to continue supporting as it prepares for the 2018 general election.

Said was delivering the opening address during the party’s general council being held at the PN’s headquarters. Elections are taking place at the Dar Centrali, which is buzzing with activity, to elect the 18 members sitting on the executive committee.

For the first time since amendments to the statue came into force last year, the elections have now been opened to some 1,400 councillors.

Said, who has been asked to step down from his post as secretary general to focus on Gozo, said the PN had to take difficult decisions in order to renew the party. “I put my heart into the job. Challenges don’t scare me and with the leader’s continuous support, we took the decisions that had to be taken.”

Describing the 2013 electoral loss and the subsequent immediate decisions that needed to be taken as “perhaps the party’s most difficult period in its 150 year existence”, Said said the PN had to make the leap from a party that was used to being in government from a party aware that it could make a difference, even from the Opposition benches.

Speaking about the party’s financial woes, tackled during the first two years of the party’s new leadership, Said said that the PN had stopped the financial haemorrhage. He said, that it didn’t mean that the party’s problems were over but it had now managed to reach a balance while strengthening its media arm.

Reiterating that the PN had never expected to lose the 2013 elections by 36,000 votes, Said said the successive MEP elections – where the PN also suffered a heavy defeat – did not dishearten the party. This, he said, prepared them for the local councils elections.

“Both parties were vying for Mosta and St Paul’s Bay and, despite the majority held by the Labour Party, the PN succeeded in winning them both,” he said, adding that most significant was the increase in seats in Haz-Zebbug, Hal Kirkop and Birzebbugia among others.

“In two years we managed to reduce the gap between the two parties by half. If we remain focused and continue working, the remaining half can be drastically reduced too.”   

Delivering a more impassioned speech, deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said the PN had defied all odds in the local councils elections, achieving results which others thought would not be possible.

“We went into their strongholds and made of mess of their support, obtaining thousands of votes they never thought it would be possible. The Labour Party is now in panic and repeatedly trying to deviate attention because they are now scared of Simon Busuttil,” Fenech Adami said.

The PN deputy leader said the Labour administration was busy opening projects “which in reality belong to the PN”, including the opening of the oncology centre at Mater Dei and the restoration of Fort St Elmo.

Lambasting the government,  Fenech Adami fired up the audience by talking about “vindictive transfers” that took place under former home affairs minister Manuel Mallia, arguing that Mallia had “destroyed” the Armed Forces of Malta and the Police Forces.

Turning his guns onto Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi, Fenech Adami said that Mizzi’s wife – Malta Enterprise envoy Sai Mizzi Liang – was being paid thousands “and no one knows what she’s doing”.

Fenech Adami said Joseph Muscat had given Cyrus Engerer a lucrative job in Brussels despite his court sentence. He said, that the core difference between Labour and PN was that “the PN changed the face of this country while Labour was facing one scandal after the other”.

Accusing the government of insulting people’s intelligence, the PN deputy leader said Muscat had taken people for a ride telling them that an “American University” was coming to Malta “when in reality this is a Jordanian investment and we will soon probably learn that it won’t even be a university”.

“Joseph Muscat is today surrounded by the same people who reigned in Malta during the island’s worst times,” he said, making specific reference towards the presence of Edwin Bartolo ‘il-Qahbu’ during last Sunday’s political activity in Marsascala.

During his intervention, former resources minister George Pullicino said the PN made a difference in everyone’s lives, including in the south of Malta. He went on list the construction of new schools, sports complexes, a residence for the elderly, the embellishment of promenades, Freeport’s success, oil tanking and Smart City.

“We carried out 30 projects in the South, more than the years we did in government. Labour has now been two years in government … where are Labour’s projects?” Pullicino said, adding that the government did not even honour its promise to switch the power station to diesel.

“But our biggest project was that we truly helped the families in the south, giving true equal opportunities, for them to attend the university.”

Pullicino said the PN had to commit itself to focusing more on the South and be truly in a position to make a difference.

The general council was addressed by a number of councillors and MPs, including MP Toni Bezzina who claimed that Labour MP Franco Mercieca – formerly parliamentary secretary for the elderly – “wanted to make a return to Muscat’s Cabinet”.

Bezzina also said that PN leader Simon Busuttil would be "Malta's 14th Prime Minister".

Shadow tourism minister Antoine Borg said the Opposition was in favour of a strategic alliance for Air Malta but it will oppose any proposals to reduce Air Malta’s fleet.

Former PN MP and recently-elected Mosta mayor Edwin Vassallo, expressed “solidarity” with former Gozo minister Giovanna Debono, describing her as a victim of the Labour government. Debono resigned from the PN after her husband, Anthony Debono, was arraigned over charges of using the ministerial budget to commission private works for constituents. Debono stayed on as an independent MP. This means the PN will not be able to replace Debono's seat, taking the opposition's seats to 29.

According to Vassallo, politics in Malta were marred by bullying.

Marsascala councillor Charlot Cassar accused the government of dividing the country in two, “talking about the North and South as if people living in the southern region were second class citizens”. Cassar, who is among the locality’s councillors opposing the proposed development of the American University at Zonqor Point, said the government was “selling off” Malta to foreigners.