Nationalist MP Edwin Vassallo has hit back at the party leadership following his fallout on the gay marriage issue, saying the PN’s attempt to portray itself as liberal was to blame for last June’s landslide general election defeat.
This criticism was levelled during a PN leadership campaign event at the Mġarr party club where he endorsed former general secretary and Gozitan MP Chris said.
Mr Vassallo, who is renowned for harbouring conservative Christian views, last month fuelled controversy after being the only legislator out of 67 in the House of Representatives to vote against the introduction of gay marriage.
The MP had justified his stance saying the law went beyond Labour’s electoral mandate as it would pave the way for surrogacy and gamete donation.
Mr Vassallo took this course of action after failing to persuade outgoing party leader Simon Busuttil to grant a free vote on this issue.
The party had to go back to its traditional values and beliefs
Though, prior to the vote, the party had warned that anyone defying the party line on the Bill would face consequences, to date no disciplinary action has been taken against him.
In his address Mr Vassallo also warned that any attempt to shift the PN’s values and beliefs closer to those of the Labour Party under Joseph Muscat would spell disaster.
“Cloning the PN into a Labour variant would leave voters no choice at all, and they would probably opt for the status quo as they are more likely to get something in return from a party in government.”
Mr Vassallo insisted that the party had to go back to its traditional values and beliefs on the lines of the style adopted by Eddie Fenech Adami, without turning back the clock.
“The PN must be once again the party representing Christian voters, and we must stay away from the temptation of ditching all our values in a bid to win an election at all costs. After all, universal and Christian values have a lot of common denominators like solidarity and safeguarding human dignity,” he said.
Taking a dig at the outgoing PN leader, the MP argued that in the last four years the party tried to lure liberal voters but the result was a complete fiasco.
“Not only has the party failed to regain lost ground, but it ended up putting off its core supporters who no longer felt at ease with it,” he added.