Nationalist backbencher Franco Debono yesterday said he was prepared to meet the Prime Minister to try to find a way out of the political impasse.
We can find constructive solutions that are in the best interest of the country
“I never had any problem meeting the Prime Minister,” the rebel MP told The Sunday Times, though he refused to give a guarantee he would vote with the government throughout this legislature.
The last time the 37-year-old lawyer held a meeting with the Prime Minister was on January 22, days before he abstained from a vote of no-confidence in the government.
His decision prompted Lawrence Gonzi to seek re-election as Nationalist Party leader. Amid calls for radical constitutional reforms, Dr Debono insisted that the Prime Minister has to rid himself of what he described as a “clique”.
With the Labour Party and Alternattiva Demokratika calling for an early election, The Sunday Times asked Dr Debono whether he was prepared to meet the Prime Minister.
“The ball is surely not in my court. The decisions are to be taken by the Prime Minister now,” he said yesterday.
He said as far as he was concerned there were no mediators in the matter, and the situation never warranted one.
However, he added that “in any case, the Prime Minister knows he can, and I prefer that he communicates with me directly, whenever he needs to do so.”
Asked whether he was willing to meet the backbencher, Dr Gonzi said the door to discussion was and remains always open. “We can find constructive solutions that are in the best interest of the country,” he told The Sunday Times.
Dr Debono said the feedback he had received was that he still enjoyed wide support in his electoral district and everyone appeared to have dissociated themselves from a petition which was calling for his resignation from Parliament.
He added he was on very good terms with most parliamentary colleagues.
The backbencher said the parameters for an eventual solution lie in constitutional reforms, the dignity of parliament, and the established and accepted political practices of western democracies.
“It is ironic that there will be this leadership ‘thing’, after the Prime Minister admitted mistakes and as a consequence calls for political reforms and new political practices, and yet this will all happen while political parties themselves remain the most unregulated bodies at Maltese law.”
He said the situation cannot be solved if those who were responsible for the mistakes and failures admitted by Dr Gonzi did not resign and remained advising him. Dr Debono refused to give a guarantee he would vote with the government, ensuring it can run its term until 2013.
“I can guarantee respect for the Constitution and the people of Malta according to the oath I had taken on becoming MP and as I have always done so far, to the best of my abilities.”