Letters • February 1 2004

The latest twist

Joseph Muscat
Mosta

The latest news from the Labour camp is another twist, this time internal: the increase of the number of candidates who they are to contest the European parliament elections for the party. To be honest, I never understood the decision of the party that only four candidates could contest the election.
But that decision was taken and many could have considered it a correct one; because let face it; how can a person vote for a candidate when up until yesterday the candidate did his utmost to persuade us against EU membership?
The Labour Party led by Alfred Sant is famous for U-turns. Just to mention a few: VAT-CET-VAT, EU-Partnership-EU, resigning-non-resigning-resigning, and now the number of European Parliament candidates.
I believe in flexibility, but all this is a policy change in a short time period.
I never understood the first decision, but it could be that I understand the second. Everybody knows that the candidates most loyal to the leader, Jimmy Magro and Manuel Cuschieri are left out in the cold and were not chosen to represent the party.
I do not think that it pleased Dr Sant, so now he has asked for a second chance. There will be the European elections in June, when the people elect who is to represent them in the European parliament. My only wish is that whoever is elected, h will do his or her best for the nation. But it is very hard for me to expect something in this direction when up until yesterday many Labour politicians did their utmost against all the EU institutions in the media.
It is not that I do not respect different opinions, on the contrary; I do believe that different opinions are healthy and I respect them, but not many Labour arguments that were brought before the EU referendum, they were vile. There are people in the party who can express Labour policies with positive arguments, but they were side tracked if not worse.