Azzjoni Nazzjonali's leader Josie Muscat talks tough as the election looms. Mark Micallef digs into the sturdy rhetoric to find rather tentative solutions.

What kind of feedback are you getting?
I don't make any predictions but my feeling is that I am confirming the feelings I had when I decided to form this party. People have had enough and the last minute attempts to net votes are largely useless, save for a very small group of people who can still be swayed. I think a lot of people have already decided.

Yes, but you surely have a gut feeling.
My gut feeling, and I'm not saying it necessarily applies to us, is that the country is in for a surprise.

When it comes to the fortunes of a third party?
No, it can be anything but this country is in for a surprise.

Even with regard to the main parties?
Yes, because even though it looks like Labour is going to win, my feeling is that people, excluding the hardcore who will keep voting as they have been come what may, the remaining 35 to 40 per cent of the population is disillusioned with the main political parties. We have Labour accusing the PN of being corrupt and inefficient, the PN accusing Labour of being a party of old faces, old ideas, and Alternattiva Demokratika has been there for 18 years and never made it. In the circumstances we are the logical choice.

Your party and AD, however, are in the same situation.
Yes, but we've been around for only seven months.

But the struggle for a third party to get a foothold in parliament is always going to be uphill.
We're not saying we're going to govern but I seriously think, otherwise I would not have decided to take the plunge, that for a few years at least, this country needs a national government. Not a coalition, but a national government. I feel we have a list of massive problems that aren't even being discussed such as the power station, the EU, which has been good for a number of people but which is also creating serious problems for others, such as farmers...

So are you planning to enter a coalition if you have the opportunity?
All options are open. If the people elect us, in a way, the country will rely on us. We will not work in the interest of the party but in the interest of the country. Our first preference is to offer a coalition agreement to the other two parties.

So, do you have a preference?
No, it doesn't make any difference to us as long as they work for the national interest and agree on a set of principles that for us are important.

What happens if you don't make it?
Nothing, the party will continue operating and we'll keep working for the next election. We're a young party; if you exclude me, who they chose because of experience... once you see our candidates, you'll realise that they are young, coming from young professions, IT, accountants... They're in tune with what the people want.

Are you worried that the polls hardly take AN into account?
The polls are also showing that there's about 40 per cent of the electorate that is undecided.

So you're banking on the fact that your voters are there?
If the polls reflect reality, then even my theory that the parties together share a hardcore base of up to 60 to 70 per cent of the population is incorrect. They've got less.

The issue of traditional values seems to be central to what you're about. Society has changed. If at all desirable, how are you going to reverse these changes?
You start from the family. That is the foundation of society and the individual, and when I say family I mean a man, a woman and children. With a strengthened family the children start getting their education from that family, their values, love and their discipline. If they don't get all this, they will take that to school too and that is what is happening today.

But what has this got to do with...
Because the family today is disintegrating...

What do you mean disintegrated? There are plenty of healthy, well-adjusted families.
When you have a disease you don't let it spread before you cure it. If we keep going down this road nothing will be left.

It's one thing saying that there are problems and quite another saying that the majority of families in Malta are "disintegrating".
In 2007, you had 900 children out of 3,000-odd births with an unknown father. If things keep going that way, what will happen?

What do you plan to do?
We stop incentivising this sort of social pattern, as is happening now.

How are we doing that?
Today, if you're a single parent, and there are people who abuse this term - they say so to get benefits, the Government gives you social benefits, a house...

Why should they do this? A regular couple that meet the standard income criteria still get a home from the state if they apply for one. You don't have an incentive to be a single parent there.
You're wrong, the Government gives you preference if you're a single parent.

So what will you do in those cases where people are genuinely single parents and need help? Your policy will negatively affect both parent and child. Would they be left to fend for themselves?
No, you can never leave children to fend for themselves, under any circumstances. We have no intention of hurting anyone, especially children.

So you have a state-sponsored vendetta against single parents.
We don't want to give taxpayers' hard-earned money to...

But how are you going to do it?
I'm telling you. First of all by strengthening the traditional family. We will recognise the work done by any one of the parents who decides to stay at home to take care of the children. We're saying the tax bands (threshold) should be raised to €13,800 (Lm6,000), because in this day and age you cannot live well with less than that...

But what about the single parents' issue.
How are...
When you do that you're already strengthening children's values. When you sort this, you'll deal with drugs and all the social malaise that we're seeing today.

You haven't answered my question, what do you plan to do with single parents?
To get social benefits the mother has to name the father. It's impossible for a woman to have sex with someone and doesn't know who that person is. Otherwise we're really living in cuckoo land!

What will that solve?
She has to say who she had sex with and then the father will be made to pay for the child's upbringing...

What if the father is a foreigner?
It's her problem, but the state will sustain her children.

How?
We'll see about that.

What to you mean 'we'll see'?
We will discuss. These are the principles we're going to...

But those principles are going to dictate how you act. If a single parent needs a home but the State will not give her one because she is a single parent, isn't it obvious that both her and the child are going to pay the consequences?
You're trying to put words in my mouth. I'm saying there should be different solutions because the problem of today's social services is that they put everyone on the same plane. We're saying that social services should be individualised because everyone has his own problems. You have to offer solutions according to the problems - if you have 100 different problems you'll have 100 different solutions.

You're constantly complaining about the burden of welfare and you're proposing tailor-made social services?
When it comes to people's suffering, yes, we will.

You accuse the parties of cheap talk, yet that is how some of your own proposals come across, such as your solution for illegal immigration... flying immigrants to Brussels, for instance. And why Brussels anyway? Why not Italy, France, Ireland or Slovenia?
Brussels is telling us what to do with them.

It's not Brussels. That is simply where the institutions are.
Brussels represents the EU. It's not a question of Belgium.

Yes, but what do you think this will do to our relations with Belgium?
We'll see. We'll see how they take care of them then. I just want to see if they take care of them as they expect us to. It's a test.

They're just going to send them back and our international reputation will go down the drain the process.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Don't you think we'd be damaging our international reputation?
I would do anything for my country... If that's what needs to be done it will be done, we can't be cowards.

And how will you deal with the problem here?
They come here and we place them in detention centres. But if we're going to place them in detention centres we have to treat them like human beings and not like animals as they are being treated now. But besides that, not all of them are detained one-and-a-half years. Most of them are released after six months... we feed them, give them a place to stay.

Those are the people who deserve some form of status.
Only about 100 people are given refugee status.

But the others get status too. There is refugee status, humanitarian status...
So, you're saying we should accept these people.

Of course.
We'll let people decide that in the election. I believe we are relaying what the people are feeling now... My principle is that I don't want them here. If we want to solve the problem of illegal immigration it's very simple - you stop illegal immigration.

How?
We have our territorial waters, whoever trespasses is an alien...

Okay, so what do you do, give them fuel to keep going or push them out?
We are not inhumane...

It's easy to say that but it depends on the solutions you come up with.
We would feed them, take care of them and give them medical help. When we agree with Europe on a burden-sharing agreement... we would agree to keep our share according to a predetermined formula. But Europe does not want this. All it wants is to give us money.

What if an agreement is not reached?
If we cannot reach an agreement with the EU or the UN, I would go to the people, see what they want and then abrogate our international obligations. I chose the country over the heart.

If you take this argument to its extreme, what you're saying would undermine our credentials as civilised people.
If the country is invaded we have to defend ourselves.

There are about 1,000 illegal immigrants coming to Malta each year, you call that an invasion?
There are 9,000 immigrants running around.

That's the number of immigrants that have landed since 2002, perhaps, but it's not the number of immigrants we have. Many have left the country.
It's 9,000... if the Government does not say how many there are, I can only say how many came.

But you know otherwise...
No I don't. But I do know that they're increasing in the streets and if you say they're not, we're really living on different planets. Some 30 to 35 of the 1,400 left in detention are freed every day, so they're increasing.

Yes, and everyday they leave for Italy and elsewhere, something which is likely to increase after we're entered the Schengen area.
All the better because they solve our problem!

On one hand, you say that your party is humane, then you say you want to close open centres.
That's not what I'm saying. Have you ever been to the open centres and seen them being picked up in trucks? Do you know how much they pay them? They're being exploited. Are you happy with the situation? I'm not.

We're saying they should stay in detention and be treated well. If there are contractors that need labour they agree with the Government on a predetermined wage, which should always be more than the national minimum wage so the Maltese workers will always have an advantage. The money is then kept by the Government, not taken from them because that money is theirs. A part of it will go to pay for their living expenses and the rest is given to them when they leave.

Why in detention?
Because that is how it should be. They shouldn't be running around taking other people's jobs.

If they are given status...
We will not give them any status.

Not even refugees?
Refugees are refugees. But these are not refugees.

But you have to process them?
Yes, once you've processed them.

So it's either refugee or nothing.
Yes, that's it. You're either a refugee or you're out.