Franco Debono said this evening he was a victim of a bad political system, he was suffering a lot and he hoped the country will gain something out of the situation.

Speaking on Xarabank, Dr Debono said major constitutional reforms were needed to strengthen the country's structures.

He said that although a legislature was elected for five years, the government was not. This was because the Prime Minister was appointed by President as the person who enjoyed the biggest majority in Parliament.

The point, he said, was democracy.

The country did not just need constitutional amendments, it needed good amendments focusing on institutions and not parties.

Although political parties were important but they were not ends in themselves. This was the shift the country needed to make in the next 10 to 15 years, Dr Debono said.

Accused that he was being used by the Labour leader, Dr Debono said that it was the Nationalist government which did not take on board proposals he had been pushing for for years.

The party he loved and to whom he had dedicated years of his life opted to drag its feet and procrastinate creating a problem and destroying its solution.

Fellow PN backbencher Edwin Vassallo told Dr Debono that he was welcome back into the party where he could continue working. Others, he said, only wanted an early election.

Dr Debono said he appreciated the invitation to continue working within the PN but before it took certain decision, the party should be more sensitive both with the people and also internally.

Dr Debono said that an MP was not a party delegate but a representative of the people elected within a party to also represent the issues of the people who elected him.

An MP he said, had to to balance between party issues and the fact that he was representing the people and this was what he had tried to do.

When Mr Vassallo said that he had supported John Dalli for the PN leadership election but once Dr Gonzi was elected, loyalty required him to seek what was the common good, Dr Debono said that in that election he had voted for Dr Gonzi.

He said that in difficult times when he had wished to contribute much more he remained silent and it was only his loyalty which kept him within the party.

The issued he raised, he said, were all in line with the PN's credo and with the oath he had taken when he became MP.

Now that the people knew him and knew how enthusiastic he was to contribute, they must realise what a sacrifice this had been for him.

Dr Debono said that in the last election, the people wanted new faces and GonziPN represented both staunch Nationalists and floaters so all elected MPs should be involved in the decision making process.

He said that the surreal irony was that in a legislature with several episodes when responsibility should have been shouldered and there should have been resignations, there were none and because he did not agree with certain decisions taken, he was being asked to resign. As he had already said, he will not.

"The issue now is above democracy and there are responsibilities which have to be shouldered."

Pressed to say what will happen when the vote is taken next week, Dr Debono said he had already made a number of declarations which were clear.

If the Prime Minister would not shoulder responsibility he has already said he would take a certain position and he had not yet heard what the Prime Minister was going to do.

The MP said that following the last vote of confidence he had hoped that business would not now continue as usual. The PN, Dr Debono said, should be more sensitive to the people’s needs.

He said that he had also given his party a plan on how to tackle the trapping issue with the EU but this had had also been ignored so far.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.