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Simon Busuttil said today that Democratic Party leader Marlene Farrugia had not made any demands as a pre-condition for joining the Forza Nazzjonali coalition.
Speaking during the daily press briefing at Dock One, he said: “She never even so much as hinted that she wanted a paid position or even a driver, let alone to be made a minister. This is what I admired about her: that she was doing this out of principle. I did not ‘buy’ her loyalty. I would never have accepted any pre-conditions.”
He referred to various business people – such as Claudine Cassar, Winston Zahra Jnr and Grace Borg – who recently endorsed Forza Nazzjonali adding that no one person or party can change the current political situation on their own.
“It is clear that standards were falling – and fast – when it came to corruption. We admittedly made mistakes in the past, but now we want to turn the page and start afresh. We want to clean up the political system once and for all.
“Forza Nazzjonali is not just something that we create for the electoral campaign but it is something that will live on,” he said, indicating to the audience that the manifesto approved on Wednesday night bore both leaders' signatures.
As soon as he was elected he would use the last month of Malta’s presidency to go to the European Council to deliver the message to the leaders of the EU’s 28 countries that Malta had turned the page
Asked what he would do to repair Malta's reputation, Dr Busuttil said he would leverage the personal contacts he had built up with European leaders during his time as a member of the European Parliament.
He said that as soon as he was elected he would use the last month of Malta’s presidency to go to the European Council to deliver the message to the leaders of the EU's 28 countries that Malta had turned the page.
“And even before the summit, I am willing to go in person to the main EU economies, Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Spain, to talk to the leaders and assure them that we are once again on the right track.”
Marlene Farrugia was asked about Forza Nazzjonali’s promises to reduce the price of petrol and electricity and turned on the Labour Party: “Oil now costs half what it did when the Labour Party promised to reduce prices, but the price only went down by a quarter.
“BWSC increased efficiency [of electricity production] by 30 per cent. I can assure voters that the tariffs will reflect the oil market. We will not steal the way the Panama gang Labour Party stole from households and businesses for four years."
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