Former Opposition leader Simon Busuttil has joined calls for President George Vella to resign in the wake of the findings of the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry.

Busuttil pointed out that Vella was a minister in former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's cabinet, which was held collectively responsible for inaction leading up to Caruana Galizia's assassination.

"If he truly respects his Office, then he too must go, " Busuttil said. 

Last week, Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech said anyone who was a member of Muscat's cabinet should not hold public office.

Busuttil said that such is the scale of degeneration of state institutions that even the President of Malta was a minister in Joseph Muscat’s disgraced cabinet and this shared collective responsibility for the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi, also weighed in, saying Vella, while he was a minister in 2016, had strongly 'defended the corrupt' in parliament.

 

He also claimed that the President had refused to meet the inquiry board which wanted to present its report to him. 

Shortly after the report was published, President Vella said it should serve as the starting point for a national recovery from the trauma left by the journalist’s murder.

Both Busuttil and Azzopardi were shared an opinion piece by writer Kevin Cassar published in Times of Malta that argued why Vella should step down. 

In his opinion piece, Cassar observed that the inquiry found Joseph Muscat’s entire cabinet collectively responsible for their inaction in the lead-up to the horrific assassination.

Cassar pointed out that Vella did not simply look away. 

"Vella viciously attacked the opposition for demanding action, and enabled Muscat’s destruction of the rule of law."

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