Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was doing everything he could to hold on to power and the situation in the country had become untenable, Labour Leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.
Dr Gonzi and the ministers “are not focusing on the problems and realities of the people,” Dr Muscat told a political meeting in Pembroke.
Referring to rumours of an early election, Dr Muscat said it was up to the Prime Minister when to call it. “We know what we have to do – we are determined and facing the future serenely.”
The Labour Party had made good use of Parliament’s summer recess and had not “wasted it bickering”. Instead the party had drawn up 12 “concrete” guidelines that would form the basis of its electoral manifesto.
“These guidelines will also be used for our roadmap for the future – we want to create a new middle class,” Dr Muscat said.
The middle class were hardest hit by the utility bills, putting hundreds of families back in poverty. The Government had lost touch with reality faced by families and businesses.
Instead, the Nationalist leadership was focused on parliamentary votes, on whether people should resign. “This isn’t the country’s agenda,” the Labour leader said.
“Months ago I had said the situation would turn against Dr Gonzi the longer he stayed in power.”
Exactly a year ago, he added, Dr Gonzi faced a series of events that made it clear the Government had lost its majority in Parliament, closing off one crisis only to face another.
He recalled that the Speaker had used his casting vote in a motion of no confidence in Transport Minister Austin Gatt and a motion of confidence in the Government. “He lost a minister, an EU representative, the majority in Parliament but he believes that it’s still business as usual.”
When Parliament reconvened after a long summer recess, there was another crisis just 48 hours later. While the Labour Party was “acting responsibly”, the Nationalist Party was facing a crisis caused by the “leadership style of the clique that took over the party”.
Dr Muscat referred to comments made on One TV by European Commissioner John Dalli, that the Nationalist Party was run with an “apartheid system”. “I’m not surprised that true Nationalists feel that the Labour Party and its movement are the only hope for the country.”
He also referred to Mr Dalli’s remarks that a Nationalist government had never increased the minimum wage in 25 years – a contrast to government claims of a €1,000 rise over the last four years.
“If the Nationalist Party insists on lying, then they will put in doubt what their former finance minister said,” Dr Muscat said.
Turning to stipends, Dr Muscat reiterated that these would not be touched by a Labour government. “Stipends will remain there and if they ever change, it will be to increase them and strengthen them. No one will change or touch what there is today,” he said.
The Labour Party was ready to serve the country, he concluded.
The Nationalist Party said Dr Muscat wanted the people’s vote without saying what he would do in government and was making one manoeuvre after another in Parliament with the aim of becoming Prime Minister.
Dr Muscat would freeze the minimum wage and other wages and install Labour MP Evarist Bartolo as education minister, who would remove stipends and burden students with big debts – as he had already done, the PN added.