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ELECTION SPECIAL €1.00 Newspaper post THURSDAY • 11 MAY 2017 • ISSUE 524 • WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT PAGE 4 ELECTIONS DAYS TO GO 23 Deputy PM Louis Grech will not seek re-election TIM DIACONO DEPUTY Prime Minister Louis Grech has announced that he will not seek re-election to Par- liament. However, he will continue to serve as a consultant to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat if La- bour wins the next election. Making his announcement during a political activity in Iklin, Grech said that his decision one was a tough one but one he felt he had to make due to personal reasons. "It was a privilege to form part of such a formidable Cabinet and parliamentary group," he said. "In life, you realize when the time has come to take certain decisions and when to close off chapters in your life, even if it is a chapter that was so integral to your entire life." Joseph Muscat said that he had known of Grech's decision for several months and described the announcement was an emotional decision for him. "The country still needs Louis Grech and I am glad that he ac- cepted to serve as my consultant during Cabinet meetings," he said. "His input is crucial and he has a lot left to give us." PN youths: No rollback on marriage equality MAT THEW VELLA THE Nationalist Party will not roll back any civil liberties bestowed in the last four years, with the PN's youth wing (MZPN) insisting that it is petitioning the party to include full marriage equality in its mani- festo. An MZPN spokesperson told Mal- taToday it had included full mar- riage equality in its youth electoral manifesto it had finalised for the PN. "The youth wing has been put- ting its final touches on the elec- toral programme following the an- nouncement by PN leader Simon Busuttil that the party will put for- ward an electoral programme spe- cifically addressed to and compiled with youths from all social back- grounds," the spokesperson said. Civil unions were introduced in Malta by the Labour government in 2014, an electoral promise that swayed the gay vote towards the PL at the time. At the time the PN had chosen to abstain on the parliamen- tary vote, with Opposition leader Simon Busuttil citing concerns that it would pave the way for gay adop- tions, something he felt was not representative of what the majority wanted. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat now has said he will introduce full marriage equality if Labour is re- turned to power. PM won't comment on FIAU report he has not seen YANNICK PACE PRIME Minister and Labour leader Jo- seph Muscat has refused to comment on the observations carried in a Financial Intelligence Analy- sis Unit (FIAU) report which is believed to have described payments between OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and Nexia BT man- aging partner Brian Tonna, as being of a "highly suspicious nature". "I will not be commenting on documents I have not seen, and the publication of which is dubious," he said. "I think that in the coming days we should have more of an insight into how this report was put together." Muscat was speaking at a press con- ference on the Labour Party's health- care proposals where he was asked whether he felt the police should have investigated Schembri, given the ob- servations made by the FIAU. In last year's Panama Papers leak it was revealed that Tonna had trans- ferred funds to Schembri, which were allegedly kick-backs on the sale of citizenship through the IIP scheme, for which Nexia BT is an accredited agent.