I refer to the news item entitled ‘MP: Prima donnas hijacked PN’, (The Sunday Times of Malta, August 6) where apart from saying that Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil was “authoritarian” and should now “be quiet”, PN MP Mario Galea went on to argue that Dr Busuttil “should follow in his predecessor’s footsteps in giving up his parliamentary seat so that he would not remain in the shadows of the party’s new leader”.

I would like to remind Mr Galea that it is the prerogative of individual MPs to decide whether they should give up their parliamentary seat and not of the party. So much so that if, for example, a party decides to withdraw the Whip from a particular MP, that individual still remains a member of the House of Representatives.

What Mr Galea should have said was that any MP should show loyalty to the new party leader (whoever he may be) and should always be faithful to the party and to the country.

Evidently enough, Mr Galea is not aware of the PN’s history, since, when Eddie Fenech Adami officially became party leader on April 11, 1977, George Borg Olivier still continued to serve as a backbencher with the utmost loyalty.

It seems to me that MPs such as Mr Galea and Edwin Vassallo should have shown courage in their ideas and convictions within the parliamentary group when Dr Busuttil was at the height of his power as party leader and not when he was on the way out.