[WATCH] Party faithful rally behind Muscat couple amid Egrant allegations

Labour MPs, delegates and party faithful have rallied this morning behind their leader Joseph Muscat in a show of support as the Prime Minister battles allegations that his wife, Michelle Muscat, is a shareholder in Panamanian company Egrant.

One after the other, the speakers voiced their condemnation of the Nationalist Party “which is fabricating lies because it has no alternatives to offer”.

Justice Minister Owen Bonnici and Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis fired up the crowd ahead of the Labour leader's intervention, telling them that no lies and fabrications will stop the Labour government from continuing to deliver on measures that will improve people's lives.

Likewise, Labour party president Daniel Micallef spoke of the "PN's strategy to tarnish and undermine Joseph Muscat, which has been building up for months".

“Simon Busuttil, your game is over,” Labour party candidate Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi told the audience that packed the hall at the party’s general headquarters.

Big screens were set up outside the premises, where crowds welcomed the Muscat couple as they walked inside the building, holding hands.

Labour candidate Glenn Bedingfield, who works at the Office of the Prime Minister and runs his own blog, accused the PN leader of wanting to hold a monopoly overs blogs and social media. He encouraged supporters to once again place their trust in the Prime Minister: “We are the only party that can bring effective change to this country, where both young and old can live a better life.”

Environment Minister José Herrera reassured his listeners that Muscat had nothing to hide, as all during their intervention drove him the message that any allegations leveled against the Muscat family were “a lie”.

Herrera warned of the danger that the unfounded claims could have on the financial services sector, urging the PN “to for once put the interests of families before partisan interests”.

Conjectures, he added, where the enemy of justice in court, but in politics it becomes the enemy of democracy.

“If the Opposition truly had authentic evidence, they would have published it by now,” Herrera said.

During her intervention, former journalist Julia Farrugia, a candidate on the fifth district, spoke of how she had been a victim of blogger’s lies – she also recounted how a mother of a young man, who appeared in one of the Labour Party’s campaign videos, told her that her son “wanted to commit suicide because of the blogs about him”.

Former energy minister Konrad Mizzi, today a minister with the Office of the Prime Minister, told audience to applause that he will be contesting the upcoming general elections: “I will be with you during these elections with proposals that will push boundaries once again, to make believe that we can make proposals which people think are a dream, become reality.”

Lawyer Robert Abela, son of President Emeritus George Abela, said that the past four years under the Labour administration are the guarantee required that the Labour Party should be re-elected for a second term.

“The Labour party is the people’s natural government,” he said.

Jean Claude Micallef, a former member of the PN executive committee, also addressed the Labour conference. He said, that in the PN, people treated him differently “because I have a different DNA… because I have a face of a Labourite… because my family political background is Labour”.

“And yes, when you have a Labour heart, it beats against hatred and animosity that it pushed forward by Daphne Caruana Galizia and her puppet, Simon Busuttil.”

Labour MEP Miriam Dalli warned of Busuttil’s tactics, who she said has gone to the public without a shred of evidence or proof to sustain his allegations: “All he wants to do is to overthrow Joseph Muscat… but he won’t succeed with his lies,” Dalli said, as she urged people to compare the 25 years under a PN administration with the four years under Labour.

“I will not trust the future of my children in the hands of a politician whose only interest is power… because these type of people will never understand what it means for a family whose trying to make ends meet; he will never understand people who suffer discrimination on a daily basis because of a disability.”

Dalli insisted that only the Labour Party can provide a better life for the weakest in society: “We believe in equality and solidarity and we have facts to prove what we believe in.”