People come before strategic political manoeuvring – AD

The two major parties transformed the divorce issue into a strategic game at the expense of thousands of people who required this basic civil right, Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Michael Briguglio said.

The Nationalist Party was not abreast of the prevailing realities and was chiefly interested in politics while Labour failed to take a position, he added.

“We expect MPs to have a clear stand on the divorce issue, especially when, ultimately, it is Parliament which has the power to introduce legislation,” Mr Briguglio said, expressing his disappointment that a global civil right had not yet been introduced in Malta. Civil rights spokesman Yvonne Arqueros Ebejer said AD had included divorce legislation in its electoral manifestos since the party’s inception in 1989.

If legislators voted against divorce, they would be putting their political career before the needs of hundreds of families, she said. A democratic state treated its electorate as adults and citizens should be trusted with shaping their own lives.

EU and international affairs spokesman Arnold Cassola said Malta broke a world record and, after such a long discussion on the subject, a major party still did not take a stand on this sensitive issue.

Prof. Cassola said Labour was posing a huge risk to the introduction of the divorce legislation. It also confused people because, apart from not taking a stand, some of its MPs had come out against divorce.

People are not just numbers, he added. The Nationalist Party would be campaigning against divorce while AD was standing on its own on the pro-divorce side, he said, rewording Labour’s slogan Ġenerazzjoni Rebbieħa (winning generation) into Ġenerazzjoni Beżżiegħa (a generation of cowards).