The Labour Party has filed around 200 court applications to remove people from the electoral register, PN general secretary Paul Borg Olivier said today.

Addressing a press conference, Dr Borg Olivier said the PN had only made "positive" court applications to include more people in the register and has not made a "negative" application in the past 10 years.

Dr Borg Olivier also said Labour's actions were inconveniencing many people who were either studying, working, or getting medical treatment abroad, or were just being targeted by Labour.

Asked why the Nationalist Government had not changed the law, which says that people can only vote if they have lived in Malta for at least six of the past 18 months, Dr Borg Olivier said that was a legal point, but his was a political point.

When pressed, he said that maybe the time had come to carry out the changes needed. The government, he said, believed in the absolute right to vote and had recently introduced the rolling register. It also strongly believed in freedom of movement.

In a reaction, the Labour Party said it was ready to discuss a change in legislation but not ready to ignore the current laws, laid down in the Constitution.

"The PN shouldn't fear anyone applying the Laws of Malta correctly. If GonziPN wants to put its money where its mouth is, it should propose a change in legislation. 

"Any attempt at playing cry wolf is at best puerile and at worst an example of arrogance and crass hypocrisy," the PL said.

Dr Borg Olivier was also asked about Simon Busuttil's declarations on rebel MP Franco Debono. He stuck to the PN's position issued yesterday which he said was made following a request for the party's position to be clarified.

He said Dr Busuttil was speaking in a wider context and agreed that PN was the party of national reconciliation.

Before the press conference, Dr Debono walked into PN's headquarters and spoke to the receptionist before walking back out.

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