What the new MPs say

Nadur mayor Chris Said, who won 2,573 first-count votes from the 13th district on the PN ticket, said yesterday he had expected to be elected but not to win so many votes.

A lawyer by profession, Dr Said, who has been a councillor at Nadur since councils were set up and mayor for the past nine years, said that when he worked to improve his locality he also worked for the whole of Gozo, which would benefit from the improvements.

His plans were now to continue working for Gozo and to remain close to the electorate in order to be able to immediately respond to the aspirations of Gozitans.

On the result obtained by the PN, Dr Said said he was satisfied considering the circumstances. "The people decided to give the PN a very small majority but a majority nonetheless. We now have to work to find out why those who did not vote chose not to," he said.

An electro-cardiologist, Anthony Agius Decelis is a new Labour MP on the 11th district, having obtained 3,005 first-count votes.

He said yesterday that although he knew he had a certain amount of support, even because his wife was deputy mayor of Mosta, he had never expected so many first- count votes. But, most of all, he never expected his party to lose the election.

"I would rather not have been elected myself as long as my party was returned to power," he confessed.

The result, he said, could have been due to several factors rather than to a single issue. The MLP now had to study the situation, find out where it went wrong and whether it managed to get its message to the people, and see how the people received the party's message.

Asked about his plans as an MP, Mr Agius Decelis said he always wanted to be the people's voice and he would now be working to push certain ideas which would be beneficial to the people.

Elected with Labour from the fifth district with 2,063 first-count votes, dentist Marlene Pullicino first contested an election with the PN in 1998.

She said she had expected to be elected because she has been working hard at persuading people and making them accept her within their fold for the past four years.

Dr Pullicino said she had to work harder than other candidates to persuade people to vote for her especially since she contested with the PN in 1998, having supported Malta's bid for EU membership.

She said that although she had Labour roots, she voted for the PN in 1987 because she felt the country needed change. She continued to support the PN on the EU issue because she believed membership was good for Malta.

But when she was approached by the MLP after it accepted the people's verdict in the 2003 election, she felt it was time to follow her heart.

The people appreciated and understood her message and now she plans to continue serving them as an MP within the MLP. She would like to work in the areas of culture, environment and tourism. Her pledge to the people is that she will remain close to them.

On the election result, Dr Pullicino said it was obvious that the people wanted change with a "but".

It could be that although they wanted to change the government, they were afraid of some of the issues raised by the MLP, or whereas they wanted a different government, they liked Dr Gonzi.

Dr Pullicino said that were a lot of factors which could have attracted votes to the government, such as permits given at the eleventh hour. However, this election made it clear that the country was equally divided politically.

Ħamrun mayor Luciano Busuttil obtained 126 first-count votes from Labour voters in the first district, which was also contested by outgoing Labour leader Alfred Sant.

He said he had worked very hard for seven years to be elected, and after all this work he did not want to disappoint any of his family members or any other people who had helped him.

He would continue with his career as a lawyer and he would listen and learn so as to be a valid parliamentarian.

Anthony Zammit, the surgeon who operated on Dr Sant in December, was elected with 2,737 votes from the seventh district. He said he had been working hard for the past five years and doing home visits for the past four. He had definitely not been expecting the MLP to lose.

"I hope to be the voice of the people and of the hospital staff who have been ill-treated. The situation at Mater Dei Hospital is worse than it was at St Luke's..."

The result, he said, was a surprise to him because most of the people he had met through his work had told him they were dissatisfied with the present government and wanted a change.

The MLP, Mr Zammit said, had lost a good leader but it seemed that intelligence and honesty were not enough to lead a party. "Over the past 20 years Malta has lost its moral values and, although we have progressed, we have also regressed in certain issues."

Lawyer Franco Debono, who was elected from the fifth district for the PN obtaining 2,065 first-count votes, said he knew he had a certain following and had expected a good result.

He would continue his work in the courts and would remain close to his constituents.

Beppe Fenech Adami, the President's son, was elected on the eighth district, picking up 1,857 votes. He had expected a good result and promised to serve his constituents to the best of his ability. He attributed the Nationalists' slim majority to the fact that the party had been in power for the last 20 years.

The party, he said, now had to work hard to win back the votes lost in this election.