Prime Minister hopeful Chris Fearne has called on the Labour Party to establish an English language version of its online portal One.com.mt so that foreigners can understand the party’s message.

“We need an English version of our online portal so that people overseas can read our version of events and not only English language newspapers with an agenda against us,” Fearne said this evening.

The deputy Prime Minister was speaking at a political rally in Żurrieq, in response to a question by ONE TV presenter Karl Stagno Navarra about the PN’s recent proposal to abolish party media and turn PBS into a fully independent state broadcaster.

Fearne categorically dismissed this proposal, arguing that the PN is only proposing it because it is struggling to finance its own party media.

“I remember when the PN used to cry and complain that it wants political parties to have their own TV and radio stations,” he said. “Richard Muscat used to broadcast from Sicily, where he used to say that Malta needs pluralism, that parties need to have a voice and other stupidities like that.”

“Now the same party which was playing the victim, many of whom are the same people of back then or their sons, are now against party media because they cannot afford to run their own media stations.”

“When we were in Opposition, the state broadcaster never used to broadcast our voice and we had to use our own means, on the streets if needed be. If we return to Opposition, no one will give us a guarantee that the state broadcaster will be fair with us, so we must therefore ensure that our means of communication are strong enough for our message to reach every corner of Malta and Gozo.”

Without going into specifics, Fearne also called for a reform within PBS, just as fellow prime Minister contender Robert Abela did on Xarabank last night.