Contacts between Franco Debono and the Nationalist Party for a possible solution to the current political crisis have made no headway, with the MP calling for the resignation of the prime minister or other people who he sees as responsible for the decisions leading to the situation.  

Meanwhile, there has been no word on what has become of a petition which was launched at the start of the crisis, calling for Dr Debono’s resignation from parliament because of his disagreement with the leadership of the PN.

The petition had been circulating in Dr Debono’s district. Last week, Safi Mayor Pietru Pawl Busuttil, who had been backing the petition, denied he was the person behind it and said he did not know who was. Timesofmalta.com has been unable to find who is handling it. A Nationalist Party spokesman also said he had no information about it. Other people who were contacted by timesofmalta also dissociated themselves from it.

The Nationalist Party late last week adopted a more conciliatory tone, saying the door was still open to Dr Debono.

Speaking to timesofmalta.com this morning, Dr Debono – who has threatened to vote against the government in a vote of no-confidence - insisted that, as a matter of Constitutional practice, it was not completely correct to say that a government was elected for five years.

“It is parliament which has a maximum term of five-years, according to the constitution, and there is an obvious difference between parliament and the government,” he said.

“After each general election, the President asks the person who, in his opinion, commands the support of the majority in parliament to form a government. Thus, the prime minister stays in power for as long as he continues to enjoy the support of a majority of the House during the legislature.

“To ensure that he continues to enjoy majority support, a prime minister must take policy decisions which the backbench would support. He must ensure that he has the support of the backbench and should not ride roughshod over its members.

He said that apart from the justice sector, the same thing seemed to have happened in the primary health care reform, proposed by the health minister, which now seemed to have disappeared after lack of support from the backbench.

"It seems that the reform was the casualty instead of the minister."

"By trying to appease some cabinet member at all costs, without considering  performance, delivery and responsibilities which have had to be shouldered, and also by neglecting policy disagreement  from the backbench, the prime minister could possibly have committed political suicide by having the wrong priorities: appeasing individuals rather than policy and accountability considerations," Dr Debono said.

"The prime minister should not be held at ransom by some Cabinet member, or maybe his family.

"No one is greater than the party and no individual or clique has perpetual rights. The core values of the party should be loyalty, meritocracy and basic democratic values including accountability.".

“I am only asking for one thing, the shouldering of political responsibility by the prime minister or whoever was responsible for the decisions which led to the situation,” Dr Debono said.

This situation has degenerated mainly because those responsible did not shoulder their responsibility. Had correctness prevailed, we would not be in this situation," he said.

"Democracy cannot exist without accountability. Accountability means that people must be responsible for their decisions, and when they fail, they must resign.  

“A prime minster stays in office for as long and until he manages to enjoy the support of the majority of the House. It is very clear that he would be jeopardising this support if he takes irresponsible or even spiteful decisions  based solely on appeasing someone to the detriment of others, or worse, to the detriment of the right policies.”

He also reiterated his calls for wide-ranging constitutional reform and reforms in the justice sector, adding that the time had also come to consider and discuss the possibility of a smaller parliament composed of full-time MPs who were focused on policy and politics. 

It was also high time to consider and seriously discuss the setting up of a Council of State having exclusive consultative role, as had been suggested also by the President, he said.