The Malta Independent on Sunday
PL aims to make Malta a cosmopolitan country – Joseph Muscat
Joanna Demarco The Labour Party’s aim for the next five years is to make Malta a cosmopolitan country, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.
“We have undergone a silent revolution over the last four years,” he told Labour supporters at the Orpheum Theatre in Gzira yesterday afternoon, “and now we need to make the next step forward after winning the next election”.
“If you give us your trust, our aim is to make Malta a cosmopolitan country, and this will guarantee a better future for our children,” he said, “so that they will not have to go abroad to have better opportunities.”
He described this as the “bigger vision” which was started by former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff, after a period in which, during the 1960s and 1970s, “everyone had to think about emigrating in order to live well.”
He referred to the past four years of government as a ‘solid foundation’ which needs to be built upon, saying that the many positive changes that have been brought about in the last four years are the foundations on which the Labour government plans to further improve the general well-being of the country.
Dr Muscat referred to the past four years of Labour govern- ment as a ‘silent revolution’, saying “we made changes in a way that everyone else was just getting on with their lives”.
“The successes we have achieved in the past four years are going to be nothing com- pared to the successes we will complete in the next six years,” he said.
After mentioning the initiatives and changes which the government has introduced in the past four years, Dr Muscat told the crowd present that they should aim for two things: the aim to reach the “smallest person in society” and to get as many people involved in voting for a Labour government. “Each and every one of you has to get more people into this movement,” he said.
Towards the end of his speech, Dr Muscat said the Labour Party and Nationalist Party can be compared to St Peter and St Paul, two saints with two different reputations who are celebrated on the same day in the feast ‘ l-Imnarja’. He used this metaphor when explaining that Malta is not about one party and another but a united whole. “No matter what your past is, the present and future is more important,” he said.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat concluded by saying that many Nationalist members of Parliament are “annoyed with the situation of the Nationalist Party… but for many reasons they cannot speak,” he said.
Other speakers at the event were Secretary of Labour National Executive Lydia Abela and Deputy Leader for Party Affairs Chris Cardona.