New PN Leader Adrian Delia this morning said that what party councilors and members had voted for was becoming a reality thanks to people like Jean Pierre Debono, who has decided to give up his parliamentary seat so that Delia can become Opposition Leader.
The Malta Independent on Sunday exclusively revealed that the outgoing PN Assistant Secretary General, who was elected for the first time in this year’s general election, had decided to give his seat to Delia.
“I have always had the greatest respect for Jean Pierre Debono, and now I have more,” he said during an interview on the party’s radio sation. Delia also thanked others who had “shown great loyalty to the party.”
“What the tesserati voted for will become reality thanks to people like Jean Pierre and others who have understood that the seat is not their own, but belongs to the electorate.” Delia insisted that Debono had not come to him to negotiate or ask for anything in return. “He came to me, said he understood the importance of the situation and wanted to help the party move forward.
The PN leader said he would show his gratitude by being closer to the 7th district – the district Debono was elected on - and will today start visiting the clubs there.
Debono later joined the programme and insisted that this was the most difficult decision of his life. “I must admit that this was not easy. I did not sleep last night and I had difficulty explaining my decision to some of my relatives.”
Thanking his wife Kristy (also an MP) for her support and understanding, Debono said he will be resigning his seat tomorrow so that the process for Delia to become Opposition Leader can start forthwith.
“I followed the electoral process from the start. Delia won the biggest support in both phases of the election. He was chosen in a democratic process so every one of us, even if some of us did not support Delia during the campaign, should not unite behind our new leader.”
Debono said the party now needed closure so that it could move on and offer an alternative to the labour party. “Unfortunately, the PN is not yet functioning as a proper Oopposition. That is why I chose to give my seat to Adrian Delia. When I saw that Parliament was going to convene seen and we had no solution yet I decided that this was what I needed to do.”
Debono acknowledged that many of the PN candidates who will now be eligible to run for the casual election have pledged to give their seat to Delia. He urged them to do this as soon as they were elected.
During the interview, Delia spoke about poverty and said the PN would pressure the government to make this one of its priorities. He insisted that he did not want to alarm people but recent statistics showed that poverty had risen again. “The numbers would be high even if they had only increased by one person. We are not speaking about people who cannot afford to buy a third car but about people who do not even earn 60% of what is considered the required minimum. This means that people do not have access to the most basic things needed. Almost 100,000 people in poverty or at risk of poverty. We should make this one of the most important things in governance in this country. We are not saying that PN can make poverty vanish but we will push for this to become a priority.”
He again asked what the surplus was and where the money was going. “If we have a surplus then poverty should be decreasing, not increasing. What happened to the hundreds of millions of euros that were made from the passport scheme? Are any new schools being built? The money is not being used on roads and the new hospital is not being paid for by the government.”
Referring to his mass meeting speech, Delia insisted he had not challenged the PM to a fight. “I invited him to meet to see how we can improve communication between the government and opposition. This should not just be a photo opportunity. We should sit down and discuss what the country’s priorities should be, and where there can be agreement between the two sides.”
Delia reiterated that the process to elect the rest of the party leadership, including the two deputy leaders, should be concluded by the end of this year.
Government, PL react
Both the government and the Labour Party reacted to Delia’s claims on poverty. The PL said Delia should check his facts, pointing out that local and European statistics had confirmed that Malta registered a surplus.
The government said that, as a fact poverty had decreased, and Delia was purposely misquoting statistics. It said that those who were at risk of poverty or social exclusion had decreased by 9,000. At the same time the average gross income of families had increased to €26,247 in 2016.
The government said it was people, not numbers, and was improving pensions and salaries, reducing taxes and energy bills and creating jobs.
It also said the IIP funds were being placed into the National Development and Social Fund, and there were more than €200 million to be used for social projects.