(Adds Dr Abela's replies to questions)

Labour leadership contender George Abela, 60 today, laid out his vision for the party at a press conference this morning, insisting that the party should focus on the individual and become the natural choice for the people. He also announced that a petition for paid-up members to be able to vote in the leadership election will be presented to the party this week.

He told a press conference at the Hilton that the MLP should be a participant in EU-related bodies out of conviction.

The MLP should be a party which attracted both young and old, a party which attacked arguments, not individuals, a party which was based on firm values which included the traditional family.

This should also be a party which protected the minorities and encouraged voluntary work for society.

Dr Abela said the party should be reorganised to make its structures more efficient, for the benefit of all those who believed in the party, not just the members. The starting point should be an independent audit to establish the current state of affairs.

The party media’s role should be to inform, educate, and entertain and it should also reflect truth, quality, decency and individual dignity even in the case of those who opposed the party.

The party itself should have good relations with all the media.

Dr Abela said that as a leader, he was promising to keep closer contact with the party’s roots.

He said the MLP should continue to work for free quality education for all, and ensure that high standards were observed in state, Church and private schools. Malta, he said, should seek to achieve the Lisbon Strategy benchmarks as soon as possible.

Likewise, the party needed to continue to lay stress on free, quality health case while also cooperating with private healthcare providers. Environmental protection also had to be one of its priorities, with close relations with NGOs.

Turning to the economy and public administration, Dr Abela said Labour should encourage private productive investment by creating the right climate, with the least possible bureaucracy and without the state competing with private enterprise.

There had to be a proper balance between direct and indirect taxation, and taxation must be such as not to be seen as a barrier to private initiative.

The MLP should also promote clean, transparent and efficient public administration to ensure that taxpayers’ money was well spent, not least on social services, Dr Abela said.

Replying to questions, Dr Abela said that the fact that he was not a Member of Parliament was not an obstacle to his leadership bid. Indeed, even if he was elected leader, he would prefer having a period during which he could concentrate on the party before becoming an MP, something which was possible through co-option.

His aim, Dr Abela said, was to win the election. “The Labour Party simply cannot afford to lose another general election,” he said.

Dr Abela denied that minutes of the party’s executive meetings in 1998 showed that he had been in favour of an early election, but then changed his mind. What those minutes showed, he said, was that he backed the presentation of a motion asking the delegates at the general conference whether the party should seek an early election. He was never in favour of going to the polls early.

Dr Abela said he viewed his candidacy for the leadership as a new beginning and he hoped it would lead to a new way how the MLP conducted politics. Certainly, the MLP could no longer labour under a siege mentality. He was all for consensus politics, as far as possible. Confrontational politics was not helpful to the people.

Dr Abela said a petition calling on the general conference to allow voting in the leadership contest by the paid up members would be presented to the party this week. He would then submit to the will of the delegates.

He said the leadership contest had started on the wrong foot, with a party official having publicly come out against a candidate (a reference to general secretary Jason Micallef’s comments about him).

Should he not be elected leader, Dr Abela said he would still be prepared to serve the party, but he would not seek election for the post of deputy leader.