Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1398274
3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 1 AUGUST 2021 NEWS Repubblika tell PL to sack Muscat, ministers, Greens hit out at 'mafia pact' ministers CIVIL society group Repubbli- ka yesterday demanded that the Labour Party removes former Prime Minister Joseph Mus- cat, other ministers, officials and persons of trust who were named in this week's report of the board of the inquiry into the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. As the fallout from the board of inquiry's findings grows, Re- pubblika presented the letter to PL president Ramona Attard, herself a former member of Jo- seph Muscat's public relations team at the Office of the Prime Minister. Repubblika president Robert Aquilina called on Labour "to bear the burden of responsibil- ity, put aside partisan interests, and truly begin to put Malta first and foremost by taking the actions that are obvious to be taken". Aquilina said Labour had to oust former leader Joseph Mus- cat from the party. "I remind you," Aquilina said, "that Mus- cat was found personally re- sponsible for being at the centre of the deception, harassment, lying and creating the environ- ment of impunity in which the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia could have taken place. "The gravity of what happened to Joseph Muscat is unprece- dented in the history of our de- mocracy. The Labour Party, as the country's largest party, has an obligation to send a strong message so that behaviour such as that of Muscat and others the inquiry referred to never be repeated in our country's corri- dors of power." Aquilina said Muscat Cabinet ministers should not be in pol- itics and called on Labour not to field them as them as candi- dates. Green Party statement ADPD chairperson Carmel Ca- copardo yesterday had scathing comments at a press conference convened in Valletta, in which he railed against ministers who had "bent over backwards to serve moneyed interests instead of the country." "The inquiry confirmed the inherent weakness of the Mal- tese state, a state based on the minimum possible trappings of a democracy. We live in an al- most dictatorial system where the government and the Prime Minister are akin to kings, who can do whatever they deem fit. We have a rubber-stamp Parlia- ment, which is in fact the serv- ant of the government instead of an institution that regulates and monitors government," Caco- pardo said. "In this particular case, the La- bour Party and its Members of Parliament have a lot to answer for. They let Joseph Muscat do whatever he wanted, they let him roll out the carpet for big financial interests and lobbies. They let him turn the govern- ment and the party into servants of these interests with dire con- sequences." Cacopardo said that in speech- es in the debate in Parliament on the board of inquiry's report, not a single MP raised the issue even though it is mentioned clearly in the inquiry report. "No one mentioned that the inquiry highlighted how big business and capital circumvent laws and policies, and control PLPN and state institutions." "In Malta we have a corrupt system, full of politicians who prefer a pact with the mafia than to work for the common good and do what is right. We also have an expert in tax evasion who today leads the National- ist Party. This too is impunity, which seems to be acceptable to lots of people in Malta." Repubblika president Robert Aquilina outside Labour HQ. Photo: Giuseppe Attard/TMI