Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s decision to seek a confidence vote in the government was a “drastic measure” that showed he was not sure whether he enjoyed the backing of all his MPs, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.“It is clear that Tuesday’s (tomorrow) confidence vote will go through but the problems brought about by the Prime Minister himself are deeper than that and will not be solved with a simple vote,” Dr Muscat said at a political party meeting in Senglea.

Clearly, the Prime Minister is being held hostage by Austin Gatt...

The Nationalist Party was going through a crisis and Dr Gonzi was more concerned with dealing with internal problems than seeing to issues faced by the people, he said.Parliament on Friday voted on a Labour motion of no confidence calling for the resignation of Transport Minister Austin Gatt because of the public transport fiasco. The motion did not go through after the Speaker of the House used his casting vote because of a tie when Nationalist MP Franco Debono abstained. The government has a one-seat majority in the 69-seat Parliament.

On leaving Parliament after Friday’s vote, the Prime Minister announced he had filed a motion of confidence to show that the government had the backing of all its MPs. The motion will be discussed tomorrow.

Dr Muscat said the no confidence vote in Dr Gatt was aimed to demand ministerial accountability. But Dr Gonzi had raised the stakes making it an issue of collective government responsibility.

“Clearly, the Prime Minister is being held hostage by Austin Gatt with whom he also tied the country’s stability... The government has problems that are not called Franco Debono. They are called Lawrence Gonzi who is showing lack of political leadership and proving to be weak and not ready to make decisions that have to be taken,” Dr Muscat said.

Dr Muscat said the country was crying out for stability because it was only in that way that wealth could be generated and distributed fairly. But the government was not in touch with people’s realities and was stumbling from one crisis to another.

He mentioned as an example the vote on St John’s Co-Cathedral’s underground museum extension in 2009. Then, an opposition motion calling on the government to withdraw its support for the project was called off after the government dropped the plans. More recently, there was the vote on the introduction of divorce when the PN was divided on the issue.Dr Muscat lashed out at Dr Gatt criticising him for telling Parliament that his loyalty was to his party when it ought to be to his country. “He is known as a doer and a bulldozer but, apart from being used to build, bulldozers can be destructive machines,” Dr Muscat said as he went on to list the minister’s track record along the years when he held various portfolios.

The record included the controversial decision to sell Sea Malta, the loss of millions of euros by Malta Shipyards in two ship conversion contracts for the Fairmount company, losses incurred by the national airline and the failed promise to generate hundreds of jobs at SmartCity.Reacting to his comments, the PN accused Dr Muscat of “playing opportunistic political games”.

It said Dr Muscat should better employ his time in coming up with some serious proposals on how to generate more and better jobs instead of wasting the country’s time in cheap political games.

He continuously refused to spell out what his policies were, thinking that he could take the people for a ride with cheap talk and empty buzzwords,” the PN said.