Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech told crowds at a protest called by his party that Prime Minister Robert Abela “seems determined to save only himself” and questioned what the Labour leader has to hide.

Speaking outside Parliament to a significantly sized crowd, Grech said that for Abela, Parliament is not the home of democracy.

He was speaking after the Speaker Anglu Farrugia rejected a third PN motion for an urgent debate on a matter related to the hospitals inquiry.  This time, the PN wanted to discuss the positions of Central Bank governor Edward Scicluna and Economy Ministry Permanent Secretary Ronald Mizzi.

Both stand charged in court in connection with the hospitals concession, and both still hold their government posts.

Grech said that the PN organised the protest because it wants to “protect the nation” from Abela and from Farrugia, as neither of them consider Parliament to be the highest institution of the country.

Grech was speaking while the day’s plenary session was still ongoing, and attendees could be heard booing Labour MPs as they exited Parliament.

The PN leader harked back to the party’s achievements of the past “which will remain forever.”

“We fought for Independence, and we won. We fought for democracy and we won. We fought for Europe, and we won”, he said.

The PN leader said that the foundations which the PN laid in the past are the fortifications which the Prime Minister now wants to destroy.

Back then, he said, people did not wake up to a new scandal every day as they have done since the country has been under a Labour government.

Grech noted that there were many people who believed Robert Abela because they thought he was different to his predecessor Joseph Muscat. However, he said, this all changed when they realised that “Robert Abela was not joking when he spoke about continuity.”

Addressing the elderly in the crowd, he noted that it must be so shocking for them to be experiencing such protests as this, noting that they are similar to the ones which happened in the 1980s.

“Robert Abela seems determined to save only himself, at the expense of everyone else," he said.

The PN Leader said that Abela’s attack on the judiciary is an attempt at intimidating the magistrates and judges who will be presiding over the hospitals cases.

On the freezing orders issued by the court, Grech said that the judiciary knows what it’s doing as it froze €30 million for some – including Muscat – and €2,000 for others. Additionally, he also questioned what the Prime Minister has to hide and what he is afraid of for him to be offering so much resistance.

Grech said that that the international reportage on the Vitals scandal is only tarnishing the reputation of the nation, which puts it at a disadvantage compared to other countries.

The PN also urged Edward Scicluna to resign from the position of Governor of the Central Bank and from the Board of Governors of the European Central Bank, and for Ronald Mizzi to resign from the Permanent Secretary role in the Economy Ministry.

Furthermore, the PN continued to insist on the publication of the magisterial inquiry, and said that it intends to appeal for the government to declare what it is doing to get back the €400 million “stolen” from the deal.

PN MP Adrian Delia, who had opened the case to get the concession cancelled when he was still party leader, and PN Secretary General Michael Piccinino also addressed the protest.