Updated 9.36pm - Added video

Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil took his rallying cry of choosing Malta over Joseph Muscat to the heart of the Labour Party in Cospicua this evening.

In a charged speech on the site of the former Dock 1 at the Malta Shipyards, Dr Busuttil appealed to residents of Labour’s stronghold to follow their hero Dom Mintoff and put into practice his political mission of ‘Malta l-Ewwel u Qabel Kollox.’

Dr Busuttil said that just like Dom Mintoff defended the people of Cottonera tooth and nail and in 1998 had voted against a Labour Government as he chose to follow his principles, the same should be done this time by real Labourites who were seeing their party being hijacked by Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi for their personal interests.

“Imagine what Dom Mintoff would have done this time round if he saw Joseph Muscat and his clique sell, behind our back, Enemalta, our hospitals and our citizenship and passports. Mintoff would have wiped the floor with them”, Dr Busuttil said to resounding applause.

Dr Busuttil evoked the image of Cottonera hero Dom Mintoff.

Dr Busuttil said that this is a decisive election as the country is not just simply choosing between two parties to govern but is choosing about whether it wants an honest and serious country or a country which loses all credibility and is immersed in corruption.

“I know that it’s difficult for genuine Labourites to vote against their party. But the time has come for real principled Labourites to do what Dom Mintoff would have done. Choose Malta before any other consideration,” he said.