Coleiro Preca proposes Ombudsman for Labour

Labour's leadership hopeful Marie Louise Coleiro Preca has dismissed rumours that she will be pulling out of the race, saying she would certainly be one of the people on the party's ballot sheet for the June 5 election.

In a press conference yesterday, she launched a reform programme for the Labour Party entitled Close To The People To Win Together, which, she said, was developed after a series of consultation meetings she had with Labour supporters and party officials over the past weeks.

The document focuses almost exclusively on the changes she believes the party needs to make internally, making no reference to where she would like Labour to go policy-wise. When questioned on this point, however, Ms Coleiro Preca said she had focused on those sort of policy changes during her first press conference, launching her leadership bid early in April.

"I also want those sort of changes to be agreed upon together... I'm not going to say this is what I want and that's that... This is a political party not a project belonging to Marie Louise Coleiro. We need to lead together even though, in the end, a decision has to be taken," she said.

Among other things, the document suggests the setting up of an internal Ombudsman, who would be tasked with giving supporters who somehow felt wronged by the party a speedy remedy. The role of the Ombudsman would be separate from that of the discipline and vigilance board, she said when asked, adding, however, that she was also proposing a reform of the board.

"I'm not referring to any individuals on the board when I say this but the board has taken a bit of an inquisitor's role and that should change."

The press conference launching her bid in April followed a controversial media ban imposed by the same board on the prospective candidates. The ban was eventually lifted after only 24 hours but it still attracted a measure of criticism, even from the candidates themselves.

She spoke at length about the need of a more rigorous method of recruiting Labour members, referring to a previous procedure through which a paid-up member needed to be seconded by two current members to be accepted.

"I think it's fundamental that Labour members join the party because they believe in the social democratic values that are at the basis of the party," she said. "We don't necessarily have to revert to the previous system but I think that we can find a way to give Labour's members more of a profile."

The proposal would seem to complement the idea of having Labour's members vote for the party's leadership along with the party's 900 delegates (who alone elect the leadership), since one of the mentioned hurdles is that the party suspects there are people who are members of both large political parties.

However, she would not express an opinion on the motion to open the vote for the leadership to Labour's 19,000-odd members as well as the delegates, which was discussed by the party's national executive yesterday evening. "I feel that I shouldn't pre-empt the discussion this (yesterday) evening," she said.