Opposition will call for minister’s resignation

The Opposition will be converting Wednesday’s motion of censure in Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici into a call for his resignation.

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat had indicated this would be his party’s intention last month, but a comment by Labour MP Michael Falzon last week suggested there may have been a change of plan.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici told a news conference last Wednesday that Labour’s motion did not call for him to resign.

When journalists said the Labour leader had promised to amend it, Dr Mifsud Bonnici smiled sceptically and said: “In politics, many things are said, which then do not happen.”

A day later, Dr Falzon, who shadows Dr Mifsud Bonnici’s portfolio, appeared to reinforce the ambiguity when he told journalists to “wait till Wednesday”, when asked if Labour would still call for him to step down.

Yesterday a PL spokesman confirmed the Opposition would be amending the motion to call for Dr Mifsud Bonnici’s resignation.

The motion, which starts being debated on Wednesday, criticises Dr Mifsud Bonnici for his handling of the Justice and Home Affairs Ministry, which was split last January at the insistence of Nationalist MP Franco Debono.

A vote is scheduled for May 30 and Dr Debono – who had also filed a Private Member’s motion calling for reform in all the areas under Dr Mifsud Bonnici’s responsibility – is expected to support the motion.

Dr Debono has been scathing in his criticism of the minister but never actually declared he would vote against him.

However, asked last month how he would vote, he replied: “I will do what Lawrence Gonzi has long known I will do and what he should have done before me.

“I will also do what the justice system has been crying out for me to do.”

Nonetheless, Labour sources said the party was not banking on Dr Debono’s support, particularly after the vote on the Budget Implementation Act, in which the backbencher harshly criticised his own government but then voted with it.

The Sunday Times reported last week that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had no intention of making Dr Mifsud Bonnici a “sacrificial lamb” by forcing him to resign to avoid the vote.