Prime Minister Robert Abela announced on Sunday that he will be contesting the fifth electoral district, but the date of the general election itself – which some though may be confirmed today – remains shrouded in mystery.

Abela was addressing a Labour Party activity in Mqabba, when he announced that he would be contesting that locality’s district – the fifth, thereby setting up a heavyweight clash between him and PN leader Bernard Grech.

Many of those present felt that the announcement of the general election date would follow soon after, particularly as the cut-off date for Abela to announce the much-rumoured 12^th March as the date of Malta going to the polls is on Monday, but the announcement never came.

“The election is not more than four months away from today,” Abela told the party faithful present, eliciting a few good-natured laughs from them

“It is an election which, as I always said, starts at 0-0. We need to work to keep the faith of the people,” Abela said, repeating Labour’s usual mantra whenever a political survey which shows that they still hold an almost unassailable lead is published.

“Our country has a nice future before it, but we need to work for it together,” Abela said in his final rallying cry to those present.

“Nobody can stop us in achieving our aspirations if we remain together.  Together we can continue to achieve what we are yet to achieve,” he said.

The Prime Minister dedicated much of his speech to praising the achievements of his government and to criticising the Opposition’s negativity in its campaigning.

He emphasised mainly on how, according to him, the government continues to recognise everybody’s realities and continues to seek to improve them.

“Our thirst for reform was to keep recognising everybody’s reality and not ignoring them. Our country’s future is built on our citizen’s aspirations,” Abela said.

He briefly addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, he said that the government was committed to continuing to cautiously reduce measures so that a return to “total normality” can come sooner rather than later.

He said that despite the Omicron variant, which he noted many thought would grind Malta’s economic recovery to a half, Malta is well on the road to recovery.

Abela addressed criticism that the government’s recent announcement of a renewed set of tax rebate cheques, worth €70 million, to the whole population was something of a pre-election bribe.

“If €70 million was a pre-election gift, then we must have been in pre-election mode for the last two years, because we haven’t stopped giving!” Abela said.

He said that Bernard Grech wants to take the country back to the times of Tonio Fenech – who served as Finance Minister when the PN was last in government, and who criticised the government’s tax rebate handout.

“The opposition has continued not to realise that they don’t want partisanism and frivolous arguments between politicians. People want their lives back.  They want to return to normality, with responsibility, and to have an economic environment which promotes growth,” Abela said.

He said that the government had made some big decisions which even they had taken for granted.  One of those, he said, was a decision to keep energy prices stable and protected from recent increases which have affected the rest of Europe.

Energy prices have risen by 50% in the UK, and by 29% in the Eurozone in just one month, but the government’s strategic decision to step in to ensure that there were no price rises had kept things stable and kept a lot of families from suffering, Abela said.

“Bernard Grech wants to take us back to the times of Tonio Fenech.  A few months ago he said that if the price of energy were to increase abroad, then it will have to increase in Malta too.  That’s his first proposal: higher utility bills,” Abela said.

He said that the Labour Party has an ambitious plan for the next five years of the country, and that the party faithful should expect the opposition to try and “break” every single one of those initiatives and every single one of them.

“That’s what will happen, but they will find a movement which stands together and which is focused on doing good for the country,” Abela said.

Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri and Labour Party candidate Amanda Spiteri Grech also addressed the political rally.