The PN is trying to generate media hype while detracting from the country’s realities, Labour’s equal opportunities officer Rachel Tua said yesterday.
Dr Tua, the 30-year-old lawyer and labour councillor who shared a Facebook picture of the Prime Minister’s face super imposed on the body of deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, said when contacted:
“I don’t see why they should take it so personally. It’s the way they choose to interpret it, as usual.”
She initially shrugged off the incident, saying there were more important things to concentrate on rather than a “petty, futile picture”.
She then defended her actions saying: “The whole point of the picture is that many people’s lives are at stake because of one person... especially with the financial situation.”
Asked if she meant to compare Dr Gonzi to someone who was accused of mass murder and genocide, Dr Tua said she was trying to draw attention to the “social and economic situation of the people”.
The PN yesterday called on Labour leader Joseph Muscat to demand an immediate apology.
“This is the true face of the MLP,” the party said in a statement, using Labour’s former acronym, “officials and extremist candidates attacking whoever they disagree with in a personal and vulgar way.”
In the screenshot provided by the PN, Dr Tua is shown to have shared the picture under the title ‘Cool pic’. When one of her friends called her “silly” on Facebook, Dr Tua responded by saying: “Vote Labour my princess... You won’t regret it.”
The PN’s statement prompted a heated online debate, with some readers – including some who claimed to be Labourites – agreeing with the PN while others accused the party of hypocrisy.
Even Nationalist MP Franco Debono joined the fray, questioning why the PN did not bat an eyelid when he was being “depicted in all sorts of manners including by members of a minister’s family”.
“They did not issue any statements. Dr Gonzi is the head of an oligarchy not much different from certain regimes,” he said, lending his support to the photo’s premise.
Another commentator recalled an episode in 2003 when the editor of the PN’s newspaper In-Nazzjon was fined for depicting then Labour leader Alfred Sant as Adolf Hitler. The magistrate deemed the cartoon to be defamatory.
In a recent interview on another newspaper, Dr Tua gave reasons why she switched political allegiances to Labour even though former PN leader Eddie Fenech Adami was her great uncle.