Labour leadership hopeful George Abela today called for a clean leadership contest and said that should he not be elected, he was prepared to work with any leader as long as the contest was fair.
Dr Abela told a public activity in Qormi that the opposition he was finding for his bid was not coming from floaters or the opposition party, but the party machinery and its inner circles.
He said he had not disclosed anything new when he said that the party in 1997 while in government, had been considering a change of policy on the EU. The issue was discussed internally and informally . They had spoken on "convergence" and Dr Sant had written a position paper about it. Evarist Bartolo subsequently wrote two articles, in Maltese and English, about the subject, and The Times had commented editorially.
Dr Abela said the best thing which George Vella (the then foreign minister) could do was to say he was not involved in the talks, but he could not really contradict him, as he had tried doing. Neither could Dr Sant. Indeed, Dr Sant, who had spoken about the matter, should say the whole story, Dr Abela said.
Dr Abela spoke on his plans to make the MLP an inclusive party and the people's natural choice and insisted that the party would not be able to win elections with the same team it had now.
He said that Malta should be a committed member of the EU and said Labour should work for Malta to benefit from the EU while removing the disadvantages which membership could imply. He criticised the government for taking Malta into Partnership for Peace without consultation and criticised the government's offer for the Speaker to be nominated from among the opposition MPs, saying it was aimed at giving the government a two-seat majority in the House.
Dr Abela said the two things which had irked him most so far were (MLP general secretary) Jason Micallef's comments about him as the electoral process was being launched and Dr Sant's comments (where he backed Dr Vella over what happeend in 1997).
He said the leadership contenders were engaged in a clean campaign between them, and others should leave it that way.
He praised MLP Acting Leader Charles Mangion for his conduct.
Dr Abela said his past was a guarantee of success for the MLP's future.