Labour MP Franco Mercieca has criticized language used by a minister and a blogger and said that all those making such comments should find 'the guts' to apologise.

Speaking in Parliament without mentioning names, Dr Mercieca said that phrases such as “if you hit us with the sword we will hit you back with an axe” (made by Economic Affairs Minister Chris Cardona at a political event) or claiming that opponents had a different DNA (a comment made on TV by blogger Andrew Borg Cardona) only raised political tensions and were inappropriate.

Dr Mercieca also criticised the PN for summoning a crowd outside the law courts when shadow minister Jason Azzopardi was arraigned for criminal libel proceedings.

This was an incitement to violence, Dr Mercieca said.

Furthermore, he could not understand how the PN viewed Dr Azzopardi’s arraignment as a threat to democracy. Everyone had a right to file a libel complaint over comments made about him and the PN should therefore not consider itself above the law, he said. 

Dr Mercieca accused the Nationalist Party of political hypocrisy and said it had made  cardiologist Albert Fenech resign from the House after he was engaged by the Vitalis Group which would be investing in St Luke’s, Karin Grech and the Gozo Hospital. Since the Opposition was critical of these projects it wanted to be free to criticise them.

Also a disgrace, Dr Mercieca said, was the PN’s cedoli loans scheme, which circumvented the party funding law. Faceless individuals were being encouraged to lend money to the PN without the usual process of due diligence.

The obvious risk was that such donors would, when the PN was returned to government, be granted state contracts and then write off their loans, which amounted to corruption.

The PN was also hypocritical in its criticism of new regulations that established licence fees for billboards – with a waiver for political parties in the three months before an election.

Here again, he said, the PN wanted to be above the law by not being required to pay a licence fee for its billboards at any time.

The regulation of the billboards was important for environmental reasons, Dr Mercieca said and the law should apply to all.