Mangion rejects Speaker offer

N Cami

I choose Labour's way. And Gonzi and PN (or Gonzi PN?) will not be given any chances now. They have to work it out with what they managed to obtain. Let Gonzi try to rule alone, after all that's what GonziPN was all about.

JOE GALEA-----so what you're saying is that the MLP had a bad electoral campaign in 1981 ( no majority there) 1987, 1992, 1998, 2003 referendum and 2003 election and 2008..........ok let's say you're right for the moment : who was held responsible? And if the election campaign was so bad why did you say sooo many times that the PN was heading to its biggest defeat? Did you do anything to make the MLP any better??!!!...................no Joe galea i am not a daydreamer and I do not think the PN is perfect FAR FROM IT!!!!
---RAMLA CASE---- very very bad project to which the PN took a shameful passive attitude.....and paid dearly........................
MEPA--------Three Sundays ( Independent on Sunday) ago I wrote a very critical article in which I criticised MEPA and said that that the PN has left this authority become a govt. more powerful than the govt. itself
DIVORCE/GAY ISSUES----the PN is miles away from being pro active and taking steps in the right direction with regards to these issues as it is unfortunately still full of holier - than - thou conservatives who just need to wake up and smell the coffee....on the other hand EVARIST BARTOLO has been quite clear on the need for more Liberal politics.........well done Varist!!! Pity no one seems to be noticing his capabilities!! Joseph tiela u joseph niezel.......
You see Joe the Nationalists have made a-lot of blunders and I do not support every move they make, that's why I refuse to become a paid up member and get closer to the party at this stage.............I have no problem criticising the PN ........you see the younger might vote PN or MLP but this does not mean they will stop short of criticising where needed!!! If the Pn is weaker than 2004-2008 i don't feel threatened....in fact i think its better....it'll stop the many pussyfooting of some incompetent ministers like the one who has been replaced by Austin gatt

Mr. Galea should note that the "weak, unsteady government, with internal bombs ticking" is managed by a pair of steady hands. Labour should just relax, sit back and watch.
With regard to "internal bombs ticking" he had better look inside the glass house because, so far, there are five live ticking bombs and those five do not include a bunch of other bombs soon to be fused with regard to the deputy leaders and the Secretary General positions.


If the MLP's main aim is to topple the government early, then so be it , but they should remember that five years after the 2003 defeat they still were not prepared and they will be much less so if they go for an early election this time around.
As I understand, their financial position is not all that great, either.

Well done Dr Mangion. Had the PN's offer been genuine, then the PM's offer for the Opposition would not have been to nominate the Speaker from among its MPs, thus enabling the PN to have a majority of 2.
Interesting the comment of Mark Vassallo; I would have gone further than that - why not elect JPO as speaker, some PN supporters wanted his to resign; this is the best way to get rid of him!

@ A Gauci Cunningham: It doesn't mean that your opinion is the correct truth. It's not the tit-for-tat that kept Labour in opposition, but a wrongly managed electoral campaign. However, I think you are a the daydreamer about the perfect GonziPN government. yes it has a mess in its internal structure, if not why Gonzi is offering a hefty reward (from public funds) to the outcasts? What is funny is that everything the PN does (Mistra case, Ramla case, improper use of public funds, MEPA disaster, manouvering, etc) is a blessing and anything that the MLP does which doesn't conform with the PN then hell opens wide.
I think that the PN apologists on here are irked so much by what Labour has decided because they know that their government is weak, unstable and has some internal bombs ticking.

The days prior to the 1998 election are a clear example of how PN would react and did react if it was the other way around. Let's not give in to PN. Its their problem, they can solve it on their own!! If they only have one seat majority, it is because the people wanted and voted that way.

Michael Attard, Mark Cassar, etc

I will not argue with your reasoning. But I will argue the facts.

Why are you, and your ilk, overlooking the fact that in 1996, the PN in Opposition accepted the pairing agreement and an MLP speaker (Not. M Spiteri Debono)? This is a fact.

Most probably you are ashamed to say why the paring agreement was withdrawn. Dig up the facts and you will be ashamed to call yourself Labour.

M.BRINCAT calls us Pn supporters booty lickers!!!...........these are the same ppl who used to cry foul 'coz the evil Nats were personal!! And now they call us booty lickers because we support our Party as they do to theirs! Shameless arrogance!!!!
DAVID GATT---true and loyal to his form and style says that Gonzi should solve his own mess....what mess? The electoral victory?
JOE GALEA-----Yes the tit-for-tat attitude got you as far as 1,500 votes away from govt. and left you in Opposition for another 5 yrs with a bitter taste of so close and yet soooo far!!....that would be 25 whole yrs in Opposition Joe...............
TO ALL OF YOU HOPING FOR A PN DOWNFALL-----------its people like you the MLP needs to prosper, grow and become malta's biggest political force!!! (FOR THE NAIVE--- this sentence is heavily loaded with sarcasm!!!)

Going through these blogs, reading the MLP proponents comments, one would think that Dr. Gonzi and the PN have a problem. Well, in my book it says that the political party that has a problem is the one that would have been in 37 years since its last election win come next election. (Remembering that the MLP tried very hard to make us forget the 1996 election debacle). Furthermore the MLP has a leadership problem including how would this new leader would get his parliamentary seat if he is not an MP. Now there's a problem for you.

Funny thing ..

Some of the same people singing the praise for Berlusconi are now calling Labour names for wanting to put a small majority government on the leash.

Well done Dr. Mangion. If it was he other way round the GonziPN would have acted the same or worse. Tit-for-tat. When the MLP government in 1998 found itself in difficulty, the PN made their utomost to destabilise the government rather than helping. So what now? Does the GonziPM expect a boot-licking opposition?...hopefully no way!!!

@ Chris Camilleri: So according to your reasoning whenever MLP doesn't agree with PN means that MLP needs new leaders? And what if the new leaders still don't agree with PN? So please let us be!!!

@ N Cami: Since when it is not 'us' or 'them'? How hyppocrate one can be on this issue? Do you remember how the PN acted in past times during an MLP government? So please, drop down that mask of yours and before criticising MLP and call for unity, look into your own house and if you find everything pure, then you can talk.

Regarding the issue that PN got less seats depite a wafer-thin majority, please remember that in 1996 MLP won the elections with an absolute majority of about 8000 and got 3 seats less. So was that good and the present situation wrong? Hypocracy again!!!

Oh come on dear PN booty-lickers! How could you pretend that MLP accept this RIDICULOUS (at the most!) offer?

After all, why are you all afraid? Dr. Gonzi has a pair of ... "idejn sodi" ... let him use them to get PN out of trouble if he can!

Who is gonna be president after Fenech Adami? will PN give up a chair? will it be Louis since he's not in the cabinet?

It is useless discussing this with people brainwashed to believe that PN never lie, PN are perfect etc...It is ridiculous that Dr Gonzi came up with this idea, and anyone saying that 'Mr DNA' (As Mr Ellul put it) made a mistake by rejecting this offer seriously needs to consider taking a crash course in politics.

@Chris Camilleri ,N Cami what would be your reaction if it was vice
versa .... would you still write like this .....???? you have to be
stupid not ""Tit-for-tat""to give one of your seat and this is history
My friend :) i agree Labour need to refresh itself but not how
the P.N wants,
the only reason P.N. won the Election is because Dr. Alfred Sant had poor
communication skills as a leader not cause the P.N. is fresh air to
the Country...
.....So Mangion did right to reject the offer people don't want the
PN to have full power.....

I say beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Why didn't the NP make the same offer to the MLP when they, the NP had a 5 seats majority? Do they feel so uncomfortable now with a single seat majority? Let the PM solve his problems.

forget it Mr Caruana that the PN Government will ever call a general election like Sant did. This Government is there to stay. It has the majority and it will govern with its majority. And that's a fact. The PN Government is not the MLP. It has been given a mandate by the people and it will execute its mandate, since it has the majority of votes. And the majority of the people (even though it is a relative majority) wanted the PN programme and not the MLP. I say winner takes it all.

What's the use to criticise something obvious. A waste of news-paper space and waste of time to read. Space and time that could be used in more profitable manner.

What triggered the issue is that we ended up with a weak government: having a one seat majority, rejected by the majority of the voters and divided between itself by disgruntled members.

The opposition is not there to solve the PN problems. The PN is not a godsend gift to humanity or Malta. It has to revise its position and solve its problem. One solution is an early election. Above all this will be in the country's interest.

A conciliatory and generous offier by the Government to the Opposition merits a reciprocal gesture by the opposition to the government. Thus the Opposition should accept to nominate the Speaker of the House....and name a Nationalist MP to occupy the presitigious post!

Tit-for-tat!!!!

I'm no legal beagle, but I have it that the position of Speaker of the House must be (please correct me all you bloggers out there) the third highest position in the political hierarchy of the land. And here comes Mr. DNA himself and blasts the offer outright, no haggling no nothing. Does he believe that this government may fall due to the single seat majority? The PN is no MLP and Dr. Gonzi is no Dr. Sant, hence the chance of this happening is very remote. Dr. Mangion must realise that there are already extra MP's from both parties that should not be there in the first place due to the juggling in the electoral boundaries by electoral commission, thus creating a mismatch in the number of MP's elected, resulting in the MLP having extra MP's and the PN having to increase their number of MP's accordingly, making us tax-paying citizens the poorer. (Was this an PN-MLP ploy?). I have one question: how is the new MLP leader going to get his seat in Parliament as Leader of the Oppostion, assuming that the new guy is an outsider? I hope not by co-opting one MP from each party. That would make make my pocket lighter still.

Chris Camilleri - it takes a blinkered person not to realise that offering the MLP to nominate one of its own MPs to become Speaker would have only served to strengthen the PN's slim one-seat majority in the House. Why should any sane person be surprised that Dr Mangion and the MLP failed to fall for this ploy. If the PN wanted to offer the post of Speaker in good faith they would have offered the MLP to nominate the person from outside the House. With their meagre third of a quota majority the PN are in no position to dictate solutions.

What cheek to criticise the MLP of being undemocratic!! Where were all you people in '98? Did you ever criticise the PN for being a destructive party . Where was the pairing agreement than? They were like vultures waiting in the tree to pounce on the government's misfortunes.

Let us take care of our own party. We do not need hypocrites like Mr.Camilleri to tell us what to do. At least now Dr.A.Gatt can not gloat that the PN has 5 MPs majority and can do what ever he wants!!!!!

This will teach the PN to be more respective to the other half of the population that is always disregarded by the people who think that they have a divine right to govern Malta.

Well done Dr.Mangion!!!!!!

Mr. Camilleri, if you think that the new Labour leader is going to do what the Nationalists want, forget it.
If Dr Gonzi was so kind hearted to the opposition, he would have let Labour choose the Speaker from outside the parliament. The prime minister is trying to look good with the Maltese people as he offered the speaker job to the opposition and gaining a majority of a seat in parliament.

@David Gatt: Get rid of this tit-for-tat attitude once and for all. This is not about 'us' and 'them' - it is about the country in general! Your country! Allowing yourself and your loyalty to be hijacked by one or the other of the political parties gives the politicians & their lackeys what they crave and robs you of your right to take an impartial decision. It belittles you. Yes, you, and no-one else, whatever colour you've chosen.

Your comment about Gonzi 'solving his own mess' reveals partisan sadistic pleasure, notwithstanding the fact that the country (your country) has not changed its Speaker.

I think you have your priorities wrong, mate. Politics should be ONLY about the country as a whole, and not about petty inter-party competition. What is this? - a bocci league or is it about the governance of a whole country?? GET REAL! The quicker we relegate the importance of the two main parties to something lower than local bocci competitions, the better.

Then maybe they will no longer be in a position to drive a wedge between two halves of the population and we'll be able to work together for a change. We'll be able to take your very valuable opinions and use them (properly) to help steer the country, instead of simply to keep lackeys in power.

Which route do you choose, Mr Gatt? The route prosperous Ireland took, or the Zimbabwean one?

Well done Dr. Mangion. Let Gonzi solve his own mess now.

This Shows clearly that MLP is in need of a fresh start with new leaders. Why would a person like Dr. Mangion decide to turn down such an offer? There should be discussions about this between the two parties. Acting in such a manner will only give a bad example to the Maltese citizens. We need leaders and politicians that set a good example and not politicians that act in the above mentioned manner. Such decision is to be taken by the new leader of the party.

Is this the way Mr. Mangion wants to educate his followers?

We are at an age where a global community is being created. Having sch a distinction created in such a small island it gets clear that such a target will not be easily achieved with such people in parliament, trying to speak for their followers.

MLP needs new leaders and needs to refurbish the whole leadership including the General Secretary and the also the deputy leadership.