Greens’ Cacopardo says PN’s ‘coalition’ assimilating parties competing for votes

The Green Party’s deputy chairperson Carmel Cacopardo has poured cold water over PN leader Simon Busuttil’s claims of leading a “coalition against corruption”, saying the Opposition is not interested in welcoming different political strands.

Joseph Muscat and his faltering governance record is becoming a rallying point for Simon Busuttil, whose strategy for power in 2018 includes attracting candidates who are now opposed to Muscat after first supporting him in 2013: among them the TV broadcaster Salvu Mallia, now a PN candidate on an ‘anti-Muscat’ ticket.

“A coalition programme takes more than a fight against corruption… it includes a vast spread of issues on which parties have different opinions about, some of them substantial – not just on environmental policies, but also on education, social policy, fiscal and economic, and culture,” Cacopardo said in his blog.

I have my doubts of how the PN can reach such a compromise, let alone campaign on behalf of other parties’ ideals Carmel Cacopardo

The Alternattiva Demokratika deputy chair, a former Nationalist candidate, said a political agreement on an electoral programme had to be the “basic foundation” of any coalition, otherwise it would be “just another herd of sheep, as the real aim of the PN is right now”.

“Busuttil’s policy looks different from his predecessor Lawrence Gonzi’s, who once said a coalition was a poisoned chalice. But in reality, his ‘coalition against corruption’ is moving towards the assimilation of those who compete for votes,” Cacopardo wrote in his blog.

“It started with Mallia who is now part of the PN and now with the assimilation of Marlene Farrugia’s party,” he said of the former Labour MP now leading the Democratic Party, and who attended the PN’s rally in Sliema on Sunday.

“A coalition is not made up of sheep, but between different political parties agreeing on a common political programme and how this can be brought about. I have my doubts of how the PN can reach such a compromise, let alone campaign on behalf of other parties’ ideals. A pre-electoral coalition means formulating a programme acceptable to all the coalition’s elements,” Cacopardo said.