Despite poor performance in the polls, Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech has asked PN supporters to pluck up courage for the election and said that there are 80,000 people not reflected in electoral polling.

During a press conference on Sunday, he said that someone in the finance industry who had been trying their expand their business for several years told him to "have courage" since whatever the polls say, he and many of his friends who voted labour in 2013 and 2017 will now be voting for the PN.

This person told him that like him, there were "hundreds and thousands" of "silent" Nationalist supporters who were "careful", not speaking out in the polls.

Grech said that "it is true that the polls at the moment were not showing that the PN is advancing, but that there are around 80,000 people who are not speaking up, but will be speaking up on Election Day".

Grech added that the "PN has the solutions that the country needs" which contrast the Labour government's "dream-like" promises "that they continually fail to achieve, or rather have promises that only benefit the few."

Grech said that the government had a chance to turn a new page with the Public Accounts Committee hearing on the Electrogas deal which was to question MP Konrad Mizzi on Wednesday but that Mizzi "hid away" and was defended by Prime Minister Robert Abela.

He reacted to news that Yorgen Fenech, the alleged mastermind behind the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who had also played a major role in Electrogas, was given privileged access to confidential documents and correspondence for at least three projects and ventures spearheaded by former energy minister Konrad Mizzi.

Grech said that he wants to know what the police commissioner is waiting for to investigate Mizzi and take him up to court, since, Grech said, it is clear that he was breaking the law. He asked the PM why he continues to "defend" Mizzi and allow impunity by not taking the "necessary steps".

"What does he know about you that makes you fear him so much," said Grech.

He said that in their nine years of government, the PL had not managed to introduce any new industries to the island, while the PN had, in the past, brought in the Igaming sector.

Moreover he remarked that when the government "discovers" that what it is doing will "throw us into a wall", its tactic is to move in "reverse".

He said that though the country is covered in a lot of concrete, the labour government's ideas were not concrete.

Grech noted that though the government continually attributes the country's deficit to the Covid-19 pandemic, under the PN between 2008 and 2013 the country didn't suffer despite the global recession, but rather kept Malta moving forward.

Turning to the budget, Grech said: "In the budget we will see propaganda from PBS trying to convince you that everything is going well".

"The government through PBS is controlling the message, so you will not be given the full picture"