Franco Debono this morning reacted point by point to comments made on behalf of the PN yesterday by Francis Zammit Dimech on Bondi+, saying that rather than having been given space, his efforts and ideas were suffocated.

Dr Debono described Dr Zammit Dimech as a "very dear colleague and a good friend".

"I appreciate that Francis has conceded and acknowledged that during my first years in parliament, even as the youngest MP on the government side, I pushed for and campaigned for some of the most fundamental reforms in this legislature.

"That means one of two things, either the backbenchers have worked too hard, or some cabinet members have worked too little. What I have been pushing for is what others should have been doing, but did not."

This, Dr Debono said, was not about giving space to him, but about giving space to the reforms themselves and appointing the right people with the will, determination and knowledge to implement the reforms.

"A prime minister must ensure that important and urgent reforms get done by whoever he has entrusted, and whoever fails grossly must resign. The irony is that some of the most important suggestions for reforms are coming from the backbench. The same thing happened with the reform of primary health care where the reform ended up as a casualty instead of the minister."

A REFORMER, NOT A REBEL

Dr Debono said he did not consider himself as a rebel but rather, a reformer.

With regard to his participation in overseas delegations, a point mentioned by Dr Zammit Dimech, Dr Debono said people should not get the wrong impression, as, most probably, he was the government MP who had travelled least on parliamentary business. Possibly, Dr Zammit Dimech had been abroad on parliamentary business for many more times.

INHERITED VOTES

With regards to the comment by Dr Zammit Dimech that he should consult Louis Galea and Helen D'Amato because he had inherited some of their votes, Dr Debono said this was a completely new theory which he had never come across. By the same 'fallacious reasoning', therefore, he should also consult the other candidates from whom he had inherited votes. But in the previous two elections, none of Louis Galea, Helen D'Amato or Ninu Zammit had consulted him, even though they inherited hundreds of votes from him.

Dr Debono stressed that a big chunk of his votes came from disgruntled Nationalists and floaters, whom he had to convince to vote for the PN and for him, thus helping the PN to win the election.

He complained, however, that people who had failed to get elected, such as Louis Galea and Helen D'Amato, were given important posts, while those who were actually elected – Ninu Zammit and himself, were not.

At the time, Dr Debono said, hundreds of people had complained to him that their votes and their choice was not respected. Some people at the time had vented their anger at the prime minister. Dr Debono said he had actually stopped an initiative by a supporter who wanted to circulate a petition.

Dr Debono said that in the first months of the legislature he started realising how some Cabinet members were taking wrong decisions. Indeed, the government and the party were severely punished at the 2009 MEP elections where the PN lost by a landslide 35,000 votes.

Yet he had not voiced any dissent in public. He only started making comments in public when his efforts in private were ignored. This was what people who were criticising his methods needed to realise, he stressed.

"Even my abstention in parliament (in 2009) was ignored. At the time I had pressed for legal assistance to arrested people and had also called for respect for parliament and better environmental considerations for the people of the south. But the government only moved on the rights of arrested persons when the Opposition announced its own motion."

Reacting to a point made by Dr Zammit Dimech that he had contradicted himself on the day of the reshuffle, Dr Debono said he had first commented (on timesofmalta.com ) a few hours before the reshuffle and had not known that the reshuffle was imminent.

What he had said, in a diplomatic way, was that he was ready to support the prime minister - but not if he was held hostage or at ransom by the clique. Yet the reshuffle only served to prove his fears right, Dr Debono said. The PM had, however, taken his suggestion, made that morning, to remove the honoraria.

On party financing, Dr Debono said he had had the courage and determination to draft the law despite finding many obstacles. Then, the government presented to a Council of Europe committee (known as Greco) a draft prepared by Ugo Mifsud Bonnici. Dr Debono recalled how he had dissociated himself from the Mifsud Bonnici draft, which he said was 'botched' and had failed the Greco test. "I had warned them that he draft was inadequate and wuld fail the test," Dr Debono said. In fact I had already been working on a different draft, and Greco should have been kept informed that the draft sent to them was obsolete. 

On the Committee for the Consolidation of Laws and the Administrative Code project which the committee had embarked upon, Dr Debono said that was his idea and should not be considered as someone giving him space.

"My ideas, energy and enthusiasm were being suffocated, it was only I who pushed them forward" he said.

RIFT FROM CABINET

He said that backbenchers' reactions should be considered in the context of the performance of the Cabinet itself. The honoraria issue clearly demonstrated how, from the beginning, a deep rift was created between Cabinet and the backbench since the Cabinet took the increase behind Parliament's back in clear breach of the basic rules of parliamentary autonomy. "This was a clear indication of a sentiment where the Cabinet deemed backbench support as an automatic and sacrosanct right which could allow it to ride roughshod over everyone," he said.

THESIS REACTION

Dr Debono also reacted to people who have been drawing contrasts between what he wrote in his thesis in 1999 and what he is doing now.

In his thesis, entitled 'The Constitutional Implications of Party Organisation and Party Finance', Dr Debono had written: "Members of Parliament of the party in office should be extremely reluctant to vote against the government, or even to hold individual ministers to account, if that would embarrass it."

Dr Debono said that the fact that he had written his thesis on political parties and party financing showed his deep interest in politics.

"Politics is part of me and everyone can appreciate how hard it is for me to take the stand I am taking for the good of democracy. I tried to push for a new way of doing politics, a law on political parties and party financing. I was, I am, seeking a shift from political parties. I would like to see healthier state institutions through extensive constitutional reforms ,a new political culture, a stronger parliament and more efficient law courts."

He said he had wished to contribute more, even as a PN candidate for 10 years, but others were given the space which he wasn't, such as Tonio Fenech when he too was a candidate. Nonetheless, during that time he had been able to focus on his profession and build his legal office.

SOLUTION

Asked if there was a solution to the current situation, Dr Debono said he had not contacted the prime minister for the past two weeks, but he again confirmed that there had been contacts between the PN and himself.

He said he was relieved to be able to speak in public about long-standing issues which he had sought to reform silently.

His position remained, he said, that the prime minister or the clique that was responsible for what had happened, must resign.

See Dr Zammit Dimech's comments at

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120119/local/debono-was-granted-all-the-space-to-work-zammit-dimech.403054