The forthcoming election is not one like any other because it is giving people the opportunity to close an era which had transformed into one of cliques and move into one where everyone has a chance, Opposition leader Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Closing the party's general conference he said:
"I am ready to decide, I am ready to unite, I am ready to serve, I am ready to lead."

Dr Muscat said that four years ago Labour went to the electorate with a fundamental flaw, thinking only of an election which it believed it had the right to win.

There were two lessons to be learnt from that experience - that elections come and go but the people remained and that no one had any obligation to choose Labour so the focus should be on being prepared to govern.

The Labour leader said that his mother came from a family of farmers with a Nationalist background while his father was a Mintoffjan who voted himself out of a job when he voted for the closure of the British base.

He said there were two significant moments which moulded his political identity.

The first was when father suffered a heart attack and he realised that his care was to be paid for by the state.

The other instance was when he asked his grandfather which side his family supported.

His reply was that the family now supported Eddie because he was saying the truth but in 1976 he voted for Mintoff because he had given him a pension.

Dr Muscat also spoke about his education with the Jesuits at St Aloysius College.

"The Jesuits gave me discipline and my love for academia. I learnt more about management there than at any university class I took," he said.

Dr Muscat recalled he entered St Aloysius during the dispute between Labour and the Church so he spent months having lessons in secret.

This was when he realised, he said, that there should be separation between Church and State. The state, he said, should not interfere in the personal life of people.

He said that when in 2008 people started asking him to contest for the PL leadership, his instant reaction was no – he was happy with his job as an MEP and had all the reasons to say no, but his heart said otherwise.

He believed that politics had to change and he wanted to give the party something back. He knew that if he wanted change, he had to be part of it.

Addressing his wife Michelle, who he said knew all his shortcomings, Dr Muscat said he knew she did not want him to accept to contest the leadership election and he knew how much it hurt when she and their children were attacked.

"When they are a bit older and they watch this I ask them to forgive me for not being there for them and for all they will suffer just because I'm their father," he told a visibly emotional Mrs Muscat.

Dr Muscat told the delegates that four years ago the party was broken but it was now one united team.

"We're here united in one vision that our country is for everyone regardless of  surname and where they come from. Everyone should have an opportunity.

"We do not look at the past but how to work together for the future," he said.

He warned that the PN will base their campaign on fear, against which Labour will instil hope - hope that the best is yet to come.

The forthcoming change, he said, was not like any other, it will be for the closing of an era which had started well with Eddie Fenech Adami and had had its successes but was now on the brink of failure.

The country had closed an era of colonialism for one of freedom, and when the system got too tied onto itself, it embarked on a new one in 1987.

The people now had the choice to close this era which had transformed into cliques to one where everyone had a chance.

"This is the time for our generation, the generation born after independence," he said

Dr Muscat said: "Our time has come and we are not afraid of making that step forward, we are not afraid to dream, to explore new solutions, we not afraid of the future and to take on challenges. We are a united movement which believes in human freedom, social justice, distribution of wealth and social mobility," he said.

Several delegates earlier addressed the conference including former PL leader Dom Mintoff’s daughter Yana Mintoff Bland.

MP Evarist Bartolo said in his address that some people within the Nationalist Party had started to feel closer to the PL.