Updated 10.32am
A former Labour minister has admitted that the party is corrupt but boasted that at least it has “gained something from it”.
Joe Debono Grech, who served as a Labour MP for more than 50 years, used a Biblical allegory to drive his point home.
“Christ said that there were two thieves. The good one, and the bad one. We’re with the good one,” he said to applause in Xewkija.
Among those clapping was Gozo Minister and Labour Party district 13 candidate Clint Camilleri: the rally Debono Grech was speaking at was organised by Camilleri, and the former PL heavyweight, whose late wife was Gozitan, was there to endorse him as a candidate.
“People say that all [politicians] are corrupt,” Debono Grech told the crowd. “And they’re right. But we got nothing out of their corruption. At least we gained something out of ours.”
More applause followed.
Labour's electoral manifesto, unveiled on Friday, pledges to establish a national strategy against corruption.
Debono Grech quit parliament in 2017 following five decades in parliament. A combative MP who embraced Dom Mintoff’s rallying call of “soldiers of steel”, he had threatened to assault Marlene Farrugia in parliament after she crossed the floor in 2015.
"I will come and smash you," [Niġi u nifqak], he had said. He later apologised.
Debono Grech spent his Xewkija speech attacking the Nationalist Party, saying it was full of “spineless people” [Nies bla sugu] who had failed to keep any of their promises to citizens.
He encouraged people to chase after teenagers in their families, to make sure they voted for the party. The voting age has been lowered to 16, starting from this general election.
“Young people don’t know. They don’t remember. They’re lucky they found a Labour government,” Debono Grech said.
Camilleri's speech was more positive, with the Labour candidate choosing to focus on a series of achievements he said the Labour government had completed in Gozo and making pledges about what the party had planned for the island in the years ahead.
"When I became Gozo minister I had promised you that the ministry's doors will be open to everyone. And I have kept that promise," he told the crowd.