Nationalist MP Franco Debono said today that the results of the local council elections showed that the people wanted to convey a clear message to the 'oligarchy'.
"The people said ‘we want our country back.’ The people are waiting for accountability and resignations" he said in comments on his interpretation of the results.
The council elections on Saturday included polling in Zurrieq, Safi, Marsaxlokk and Birzebbuga in the fifth district. Dr Debono was elected from that district in 2008, ousting Louis Galea and Helen D'Amato. He said he had at the time won the votes of hundreds of disgruntled PN supporters, floaters and some Labourites to vote to the PN and the party thus did well in that district in the last election.
He noted that the PN suffered heavy losses in all the localities of the fifth district, including Pietru Pawl Busuttil losing the mayorship to Labour in Safi. The PN has always enjoyed a majority in that village. He also noted that PN candidate Alexis Callus, a relative of the prime minister who was reportedly involved, with Mr Busuttil, in circulating a petition calling for his (Debono's) resignation from parliament also failed to get elected.
“The party campaigned heavily in the fifth district. They even brought EU Vice President Antonio Tajani to the Safi PN club, and they carried out extensive road works in Zurrieq. The people had an opportunity to show their disapproval for my stands, through secret ballot, by voting for the PN, but instead they did the complete opposite and showed their disapproval for the party and the government, as the heavy losses sustained by the party clearly show,” Dr Debono said.
“It is clear I have been representing the sentiment of thousands of PN voters nationwide and especially in my district. Where is Paul Borg Olivier now?’, the prominent criminal lawyer said.
Referring to the comments by the prime minister yesterday (and two weeks ago) that the PN needed to listed more closely to the people, Dr Debono retorted that the party should have been listening for the past four years.
“The problems are in the Cabinet and the people who are advising the prime minister. If he (the prime minister) is not going to stop listening to (Chief of Staff Edgar) Galea Curmi and Richard Cachia Caruana, the problems will persist, if not get worse”
The people, he said, were not happy with the clique and were demanding accountability and meritocracy.
“Unless the oligarchy is dismantled the PN will continue to find itself in a smaller circle, as the numbers show, and the problems will persist,” Dr Debono said, insisting that he had been predicting this for the past two months.
VOTING IN PARLIAMENT
Dr Debono continued to avoid giving a clear answer on how he will be voting in parliament – where no vote has been taken since he abstained in a no-confidence motion on January 26.
“I was the one to tell them (the PN) that the people were complaining. I was the one to tell them to take gonzipn back to people’s PN. I was right all along and yet others who failed are still enjoying their comfortable positions, whilst I had to sacrifice a political career and have police security behind my door. Why? Because I genuinely believe that politics is being of service to the people, whilst others stick to power at all costs," he replied.
"Notwithstanding the stage which this situation has reached, no one has as yet tendered his resignation," he said.