Robert Abela presents Labour's candidates

Robert Abela on Friday presented Labour’s list of candidates for the May 30 general election, saying the party's team was the nation's "best". 

“There are people from every sphere of society, with all sorts of experiences, with a large number of women and young people,” he said on Friday. 

The prime minister also pointed out that almost 40 per cent of the PL’s team of 72 candidates are women. 

“On top of everything, they are women and men who are competent, dynamic, and effective with strong values to take our country to the next level”. 

Abela was speaking during an event aired on social media. The party is expected to approve its manifesto at a general conference later on Friday, with the document then made publicly available.  

Over the last two weeks, since the electoral campaign began, Abela has been drip-feeding pledges from the manifesto to voters. His direct rival, Nationalist Party leader Alex Borg, has been doing so to. The PN has not yet indicated when it will publish its manifesto, 

In his televised address, Abela listed some of the electoral programme's key proposals.

They include increasing pensions by €50 a week by the end of the legislature, and providing an interest-free loan to first-time buyers worth 25 per cent of a property. 

The prime minister also reiterated Labour's intention to measure the successful implementation of its manifesto against a "wellbeing index" that measures various key indicators focused on anything from economic growth to health and the environment. 

Twenty-five strategic aims will measure whether the government succeeds in its overall aim of increasing well-being by 25 per cent, he said.

Among those aims is reducing obesity, decreasing the number of people dependent on social assistance by 10 per cent, reducing government debt to 40 per cent of economic output, decreasing the obesity rate, generating a quarter of Malta’s energy output via renewables, and ensuring that everyone is a 10-minute walk from a green space.