Sant lays stress on good leadership

The Labour Party convenes an extraordinary general conference today to discuss a motion on how Labour candidates for the European parliament should be chosen.

The party statute says that eight candidates should be put forward. However, in November, only four candidates obtained the 70 per cent of delegates' votes that was set as the approval benchmark.

The four successful candidates were Glenn Bedingfield, Louis Grech, Joe Muscat and John Attard Montalto while the unsuccessful ones were Jimmy Magro, Manwel Cuschieri, Sharon Ellul Bonici, Sandro Schembri Adami, Gino Cauchi, Anthony Degiovanni and Anton Attard.

Delegates then submitted a petition proposing that all the candidates put forward in November should be accepted.

MLP leader Alfred Sant said during an interview yesterday on Super One television that the national executive proposed that another conference be convened and that another four candidates be chosen on the same criteria as for the previous four.

The conference theme is Work, Protection and Dignity, which Dr Sant yesterday described as being very timely in view of the current crisis.

He referred to the election of a new Nationalist leader, saying the party had every right to proceed but the most important thing was to face up to the economic and social crisis.

"The important thing for the Labour Party is not who leads the Nationalist Party but that the country is led properly," he said.