MLP accepts Attard Montalto's proposal

The Labour Party has accepted John Attard Montalto's proposal to hold a joint meeting of its parliamentary group and the executive committee before the May 15 election of the party leader. The meeting is to be held tomorrow.

Interviewed on Radio Malta's Sebat Ijiem yesterday, Dr Attard Montalto expressed satisfaction that his request was accepted.

Dr Attard Montalto announced his intention to seek the party leadership shortly after the MLP's defeat in the April 12 general election.

He said that during tomorrow's meeting he would request that a motion be presented to suspend the leadership elections (the deputy leaders will be chosen a week later) so that the party could first discuss its political agenda.

He will be proposing that current leader Alfred Sant and his deputies George Vella and Joe Brincat remain at their posts until the party discussed its policies.

"Once the policy decisions are taken, the leadership team which can best implement them should be chosen," he said.

Dr Attard Montalto said that internally, Dr Sant had always given him all the necessary space to say what he wanted to say and he always accepted what the party decided.

He said it was only recently that he had revealed that he had always disagreed with the party's attack on the institution of the referendum.

Dr Attard Montalto said he morally believed there should be many more referenda on particular issues, as in Switzerland.

But he also understood Dr Sant's argument, which was good, that for a referendum to be democratic, Council of Europe principles on the holding of referenda should be applied. These included that both sides had the same opportunities to make their positions known. This was not the case with the referendum on the EU.

The Labour MP said he believed that the MLP's directive giving supporters three options in the referendum - to vote No, abstain or spoil the ballot paper, was what made Labour lose the election.

"I had told the party that with such a directive we would lose the election in March and not in April."

He said he believed that once the party had taken a position against accession, its directive to the people should have been to vote against.

"Had we all voted No, I doubt whether the referendum would have been approved. For even though Labourites had three options, there was a strong 46 per cent of No votes.

"Were this the case, the election will either not yet have been held or the MLP would have won it," he said.

Dr Attard Montalto also said he did not believe Labour should vote for the EU accession treaty in Parliament.

Although he believed that the people's democratic decision for EU membership should be accepted, the MLP should not ignore the will of the strong minority who voted Labour.

Following a telephone call by a Labourite clearly hurt by his position, Dr Attard Montalto said that if his decision to stand for the leadership was seen as hasty and had hurt some people, he was ready to apologise.

"My intentions had been to show that there were people within the party who are ready to face the party's adversaries.

"Unfortunately, it seems that some people were more hurt by my words than by our electoral defeat."

He said he had chosen to speak to media other than the Labour Party's because his request to be interviewed on Super One had been denied.

The MLP, he said, should be more democratic and really and truly offer space to everyone.

He said he had taken his decisions with a clear conscience for the benefit of his party even though he knew that this could destroy his political career.

He had been the only one who had had enough courage to bell the cat.

In deciding to seek the leadership he had gone against the advice of his "best friend", Dom Mintoff.

Mr Mintoff (no stranger to rebelling against the party leadership) had not wanted him to declare his intentions to contest the leadership because he knew what would happen.

He had advised him that he could not fight this battle on his own but this was what he wanted to do, Dr Attard Montalto said.

Dr Attard Montalto said he did not have any ambitions and was only offering his services to help the party get re-elected.

Earlier Dr Attard Montalto also criticised the other possible contender for the leadership post - Dr Anglu Farrugia.

He said that Dr Farrugia had been saying he wanted to contest the party leadership publicly in the corridors of the courts for the past four years. But once the contest started, he said he would only contest if there were other contestants.

"I disagree with these manoeuvres. You are either contesting or you are not," he argued.