The Nationalist Party today said it has evidence that 91 foreigners who bought Maltese citizenship via the passport IIP scheme introduced by the Labour government obtained the right to vote via corrupt practices and without being eligible.

PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said that in some cases the applicants who bought a Maltese passport did not spend six months in the country to obtain the right to vote, as required by law.

Dr Fenech Adami said that is a clear breach of the Constitution. The government continues to lose the people’s trust and has now been caught using corrupt practices to manipulate the electoral process for its own benefit, he said.

Among the recipients of these passports were people from China, Russia, Syria, Pakistan and Azerbaijan.

Dr Fenech Adami said that the PN will be initiating legal proceedings to stop people who do not have the right to vote from voting.

He said that what the PN discovered shows how this country has a corrupt government, one that can easily be described as the most corrupt government in the country’s history, and one which is a threat to democracy.

Government is effectively buying votes, Dr Fenech Adami said.

The IIP scheme introduced by the government at the beginning of this legislature has allowed a large number of persons who buy citizenship to be given voting rights without having the right to do so.

In order to vote, one must have Maltese citizenship, be over 18 years of age, and one has to live in Malta for at least six of 18 months.

An exercise the PN carried out on 100 people - which did not include all those who were added to the electoral register - showed that 91 of them were given the right to vote in the next general election.

Giving examples, Dr Fenech Adami said that one Russian applicant was still given the right to vote although, to a question as to whether she spent 180 days in Malta in the last 18 months, she replied in the negative.

A Chinese applicant said that she has been living in Malta since she was 16 years old, but she did not tick the box on the 180-day pre-requisite and neither did she sign the document.

Another US applicant admitted that she did not live in Malta for six months in the last 18 months but she was still given the right to vote, Dr Fenech Adami said.

This is a threat to democracy, he added. “We are in a situation where another office which falls under the PM/electoral office caught up in the scandal. The common denominator in all scandals is prime minister's office,” he said.

Joseph Muscat is giving the right to vote to people who should not vote. The Labour Party is desperate; it knows it is losing the people’s trust and is trying to compensate with foreigners buying citizenship.

The electoral office needs to answer to this, he added. The Prime Minister is responsible for this – his back is against the wall and to win an election he has to depend on people who bought citizenship, Dr Fenech Adami said.

 

Government accuses PN Leader of scaremongering

In a statement the government said it was clear that the Opposition was persisting with its destructive attitude towards the citizenship by investment programme.

It was interesting how the Opposition has been describing the scheme as being secretive but is now revealing details on those taking part. The only secretive scheme, the government said, was the PN’s loan scheme.

The PN’s arguments against the IIP had even been rejected by the European Commission, which gave Malta the green light. Now that he has failed to stop the scheme, the Opposition Leader has started making up new allegations.

“The same Simon Busuttil that pledged to revoke all IIP citizenships is now scaremongering by saying that some people were given vote when they do not have that right. The only real suspicion of vote selling took place in the last legislature, in the Gozo works-for-votes case.”

The government said the courts, not politicians, would decide on the eligibility of voters based on residency requirements.

 

“Dr Busuttil also knows that the citizenship investment programme is run by an independent regulator appointed in agreement with the PN.”