Less than 24 hours after Labour MEP candidate Cyrus Engerer was found guilty of a serious criminal offence he was given a hero’s welcome by the party, with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat calling him the PL’s new “soldier of steel”.
Mr Engerer was accompanied by Dr Muscat as he entered the tent where a European election campaign activity was being held in Mqabba’s main square last night.
He put Labour’s political interests before his own
He was hugged and kissed by several of those present, including a number of MEP candidates.
In a highly charged speech reminiscent of a fully fledged national electoral campaign, Dr Muscat showered praise on Mr Engerer’s decision to “put Labour’s political interests before his own” when he decided to withdraw his candidature.
Party gives a hero’s welcome
His courage, Dr Muscat said, made him the newest recruit to Labour’s “soldiers of steel” and provided tangible proof that those who voted Labour for the first time in last year’s general election were “here to stay”.
Dr Muscat did not once mention the crime of which Mr Engerer was convicted on Thursday by an appeal court – the distribution of pornographic images of his ex-boyfriend in an attempt to discredit him, for which he received a suspended jail term.
But the Prime Minister attacked the Nationalist Party for trying to use this incident to put a wedge between “old and new Labourites”.
He said despite the persecution Mr Engerer had to suffer for standing up for the rights of gay people and join Labour, he had just demonstrated that his ideals would not change.
He would continue to work within the new movement born last year with Labour’s win at the polls.
Dr Muscat appealed to disgruntled party supporters to show once again that the “soldiers of steel” were still there and confirm that the days of “politicians of the past are over”.
The term soldiers of steel was originally used by the late former prime minister Dom Mintoff in the 1960s to refer to those who opted to vote Labour in spite of a Church interdiction.
“We are not angry at what happened but we are sorry for the persecution Cyrus had to face,” Dr Muscat said.
“However he has come to the right home where even when the soldiers of steel were threatened with Hell in the sixties they were not afraid and still stood their ground,” he said to a standing ovation.
Directly addressing a tearful Mr Engerer, Dr Muscat told him that his place would remain within the Labour Party and that his decision, his own, continued to unite the whole party.
It was Mr Engerer who over the last years had convinced him to do away with his own prejudice against gay people, Dr Muscat said.
We are not angry at what happened but we are sorry for the persecution Cyrus had to face
While the PN thought it had some divine right to speak about the EU, it was Labour that was truly turning Malta into a European country.
“The EU is not about flags but about real equal rights and real democracy,” he said.
Mr Engerer earlier opened the activity with an equally charged speech. He too avoided mention of the court case but admitted he had made a mistake.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” he said to applause.
Thanking Labour for the support he said he had been given during this difficult juncture, he called the PN a homophobic party for not voting in favour of civil union.
He would continue to work within the Labour Party despite the attacks on his family, as he believed in Dr Muscat.
Through his work, Malta had managed to become one of the most advanced countries in Europe when it came to LGBT rights.
Late on Thursday evening, following the court judgment, Mr Engerer informed the Prime Minister of his decision to pull out of the race as he did not want any bad light to be shed on the Labour Party or on Dr Muscat because of a decision which he viewed as “unfair”.
In a statement he sent at 6.30am yesterday, he said: “What I have been through is a result of the decision I took in 2011 to join the PL.
“The real motives behind the procedures against me, together with other facts such as the persecution of my parents and family, can be easily reached by all, and emerged also from the inquiry ordered by former Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici.”
He said he did not regret the decision to switch to Labour “because I believe that the country needed and still needs a change”.
He had taken the decision to withdraw because he believed “politicians must lead by example and shoulder their responsibilities”.
However, he pledged to continue working for the PL to obtain the best possible result in the May 24 election.