In the 11 general elections since 1962, I have voted for the PN. I did so because it fought for and protected the underprivileged and minority groups, improved the lot of the working population through fundamental changes to the economy and education, and maintained a principled and consistent approach to the upholding and safeguarding of the rights, freedom and dignity of individuals. Unfortunately, in their committed stance against divorce legislation, the present leaders have decided to ignore the very principles which have underpinned each one of the party’s policies for as long as I can remember. They believe that denying the population the basic right to divorce that is taken for granted everywhere else is somehow consistent with the PN principles. It is not. It is the opposite of that.

The Nationalist Party has engaged its media to make sure that citizens continue to be deprived of access to divorce legislation. Its arguments and methods jar with the sentiments of many of its long-time supporters. For the first time that I recall, the party is completely out of step with the spirits of the times and is looking back and trying to preserve the untenable past, rather than doing what it has always been so good at: looking to the future and preparing for it.

It is with deep regret and with a clear conscience that for the first time in my life, I shall be going against the advice of the PN’s leaders and shall be voting yes to divorce legislation. If even one person in Malta needs to divorce, then that one person’s needs should be respected and his rights safeguarded. That is the Nationalist way of doing things and not the insistence that the rights of thousands of individuals should be sacrificed to some unquantifiable “common good”. That is the socialist way.