Opposition leader Simon Busuttil was happy losing the local council elections, a situation that was “confusing, to say the least”, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said yesterday.
Addressing Labour Party supporters in Marsa, Dr Muscat said Dr Busuttil had caught “the optimism bug”, referring to Labour’s election slogan ‘Optimistic Malta’, and said if the Opposition was happy with losing, then everyone was satisfied.
“This is surreal. A real fantastic scene,” Dr Muscat said.
The Labour government won the midterm local council election by 54 per cent, a result similar to what Labour achieved in the 2013 general election and the European Parliament elections a year ago.
The Nationalist Party managed to halve the gap it had in relation to Labour, compared to 2012.
Dr Muscat said, however, he could not wrap his head around the jubilant air in the Opposition camp and even made a veiled comparison to when former Labour leader Alfred Sant incorrectly claimed to have won the EU referendum in 2004.
“All we are missing now is Nanna Olga,” he said, referring to when a journalist asked whether Dr Sant was including his (the journalist’s) grandmother when the Labour leader claimed to have won the referendum because several elderly voters had been excluded.
Pausing between jeers and boos at the mention of Dr Busuttil and the Opposition, Dr Muscat said that since taking over as party leader he had faced seven elections and won them all.
The only other time a governing party had won the local elections, he said, was in 2000, when the PN had clinched the result with about 49 per cent of the vote.
A large part of Dr Muscat’s celebratory address was aimed at Gozo, where the government did better than many had expected. The Gozitans, he said, had realised they did not just have a Minister for Gozo but a government for Gozo. The results in the south of the island were similar to those achieved in the general election.
However, the PN did make some significant inroads. Dr Muscat said he acknowledged these developments and would not bury his head in the sand.
“I will assess all localities. Of course, there were factors such as popular mayors who did not contest and do have an influence,” he said, adding that the people of Marsaxlokk, for instance, were still awaiting the conversion of the power station to gas.
He concluded his address with a plea to all labour councillors, urging them to shed party colours and work in the best interest of their communities.