The NGO Repubblika has called on MPs from both sides to give up their seats in parliament and allow themselves to be replaced by technocrats who would lead a so-called ‘Government of National Solidarity.’

Speaking in a press conference outside Castille on Monday, Repubblika President Robert Aquilina said that the country’s greylisting by the FATF had thrown Malta into crisis, and that the same people who got the country into this situation cannot be trusted to get it out.

Aquilina said that the country needs to recognise the “true causes” of greylisting, and that the nation needs to understand that the “wrongs done by Maltese like us” had a determining impact on the country’s greylisting.

To get the country out of this crisis, Aquilina said that Repubblika was proposing that the political forces of the country give birth to a ‘Government of National Solidarity’ which would have a pre-established mandate to take the country to a general election in June 2022.

This government, Aquilina explained, would have within it a number of technical persons who hold a certain level of integrity and recognised ability.

For this to be done, Aquilina said that MPs from both sides of the House would need to resign so that these technocrats can service in a Cabinet under the leadership of a Prime Minister chosen to lead this government of national solidarity.

It was not explained under what criteria, or how, such technical persons would be chosen to be appointed to this new government.

The mission of this government would be to, within 12 months, carry out the reforms and steps needed for the country to be removed from that FATF’s greylist.

Therefore, he said, the government would have to rebuild and re-strengthen the country’s checks and balances and adopt a politics of accountability, with the principles of rule of law and democracy at their heart, and to then ensure that the 2022 general elections are done under “truly democratic mechanisms.”

This government would also have the mandate to ensure that the police force has all the means and the necessary determination to, without delay, bring to justice “persons who were or still are in politics and others associated with them who have enjoyed, and still enjoy, complete impunity.”

Repubblika are also proposing the en-bloc resignations of the boards of the Central Bank of Malta, the Malta Financial Services Authority, and the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit.

They said that this is the moment of truth for the Maltese and Gozitans, and that continuing to act as now would only condemn the country to a dark future.