Nationalist Party deputy leader Mario de Marco said this morning that anyone trying to cast doubt on his loyalty and commitment to the party should “forget it”.
Speaking at the Mqabba party club in an event also addressed by party leader Simon Busuttil, Dr de Marco said “there may be some who are casting doubt” over his involvement in the party's electoral endeavours, however, this could not be further from the truth.
Dr de Marco has been cast in the national spotlight in recent days after online speculation over his absence from party matters.
“It is no secret for those who know and those who want to know, that these past two years haven't been easy for me for personal reasons. The easiest thing would have been to pass on my responsibility to bow out. But I felt a sense of duty, of loyalty to my party, loyalty to my country, to the Maltese people,” he said.
Dr de Marco, who underwent surgery last year after doctors discovered a tumour, referred to his late father President Emeritus Guido de Marco, whom he said had always taught him the value of serving one's country.
It was not long before former party leader, prime minister and president Eddie Fenech Adami featured in Dr de Marco’s address, with the deputy leader wheeling out the famous Fenech Adami phrase ‘Is-sewwa jirbaħ żgur’ (the truth will prevail).
He expressed solidarity with fellow deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami, and shadow ministers Jason Azzopardi and Tonio Fenech, whom he said had also been targets of Labour Party propaganda and smear campaigns in recent weeks.
Online speculation has also focused on the relationship between PN leader Simon Busuttil and Dr de Marco, however, the deputy leader opened his speech by praising Dr Busuttil. He assured that both himself and Dr Busuttil had not entered politics for any personal gain, and that their sole objective was to push the country forward.
The real split, he said, lay not within the PN, but within the Labour Party, which had been rocked by scandal after scandal since been elected to government in 2013.
The PN was fighting to drag the country out of the mire of scandal and nepotism brought about by Labour.
“This is not a nationalist fight, it is a national fight. We have fought it before and won, and we will do it again,” he said.
Dr de Marco drew comparisons to today’s fight for better governance to the PN’s electoral struggle in 1987.
“There may not be a stink of tear gas, but there is something far worse - the stench of corruption that this government has brought in with it,” he said, referring to the 1986 Tal-Barrani clashes.