Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi came out with a statement yesterday, after Education Minister Evarist Bartolo called for him to step down publicly, a statement in which Mizzi tried to play the victim.

The country is used to such methods by Mizzi now, acting as though he has been persecuted since the release of the Panama Papers where he was caught having opened a company in a secretive jurisdiction.

Calls for Mizzi to leave have ramped up again recently with the arrest of Yorgen Fenech, due to certain possible links that had been revealed in leaked emails between their Panama companies.

Bartolo had said that the Labour Party tree is more important than any of its branches. He said that Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri should choose to leave for the benefit of the people for whom the Labour Party was created.

Mizzi however, tried to say that criticism by colleagues was essentially backing the PN. Mizzi said: “I am not going to publicly respond to criticism levelled by some colleagues, because I don’t think our country deserves a back and forth at this moment. All such attacks like that do is please the PN, who is obsessed with power, and is doing everything they can to sow division among us.”

He took a similar stand later in the day, when he told journalists that he was being subjected to a “political witch hunt.”

Mizzi needs to stop trying to politicise the situation. This is not PN vs PL. Labour Ministers are allowed to have their own opinion, Konrad, and trying to subtly say that they are helping the PN in an attempt to silence criticism is plain dirty.

Konrad Mizzi, we’ve said it once, twice…. You need to go. You have damaged your party’s reputation. You have damaged your country’s reputation. Leave now.

Mizzi continued his statement yesterday by saying that everyone has a right to express themselves, “but the damage that certain people have done to the country is irreparable. They are content to break the country, as long as they break the Prime Minister and those around him. The question is simple, do we need to promote this kind of action? Do we need to dance to the PN’s tune?”

Again Mizzi, is one of the people mainly responsible for the damaged reputation of the country because he has failed time and time again to carry political responsibility for his actions and step down. His actions by merely opening the company in Panama threw suspicion on him, suspicion that has not left and will follow him throughout his political career, no matter the year. If he cares about this country, he should stop extending that shadow onto the rest of us, and step down.