PN sending out ‘tribal’ message

Undecided voters should ask themselves whether the “tribal” message sent out by the Nationalist party’s latest billboard was what they wanted for their children, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.

Slamming the billboard, which depicts Dr Muscat and Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi in red and blue face paint respectively, for its “anachronistic” message of division, Dr Muscat used it to rally support.

“We want a clean break from the past,” he told his Żurrieq audience, eventually calling on them to give “a new government a clear mandate to bring about change,” in some of his most bullish language since the start of the campaign.

The billboard, Dr Muscat said, belonged to the past. “We don’t look at the colour of your face, but rather at what you deserve. That is what meritocracy and democracy are about,” he said.

Finance Minister Tonio Fenech came in for criticism for his claims that he had not seen a dossier, handed to his ministry by the head of the security service in August 2011, which alleged tax evasion by oil trading firm Aikon Ltd. Rogue oil trader George Farrugia, who has now turned State’s evidence, was made an Aikon director and shareholder in January of that year.

“How many dossiers does the Finance Minister receive from the security service, for him to simply pass it on without bothering to read it?” Dr Muscat asked.

Towards the end of his speech, Dr Muscat called on PL voters to rise above traditional eye-for-an-eye politics, arguing that injustice could not be solved by further injustice.

Earlier yesterday, Dr Muscat paid small retailers in San Ġwann’s Misraħ Awrikarja a visit, telling one grocer that the lower electricity tariffs promised by Labour would give small businesses such as his the push forward they needed.