Former PN MP Franco Debono Advises His Old Party On How To ‘Break The Curse’
Former Nationalist MP Franco Debono has warned his former party will never return to winning ways until former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi publicly apologises for appropriating the lexicon of late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
“While all political parties go through moments of difficulty, what the PN is going through is no regular problem but a metaphorical curse that it must exorcise,” Debono said in an interview with iNews. “All this internal fighting and strife, the consecutive electoral thrashings and shameful episodes are symptoms of a serious sickness. The sickness in this case is a certain mindset and a media apparatus used to try and destroy, humiliate, denigrate and psychologically terrorise all those who disagree with the PN or who show even the slightest sign of internal dissent. Under Gonzi, the PN’s focus changed from one of developing policies for the good of the nation to a siege mentality designed to smear and scare off any critic of the party.
“This in turn fostered an ugly mindset of disrespect towards the humanity of people and the use of an ugly and pejorative vocabulary, developed by Daphne Caruana Galizia, that was originally intended for Labour but, catastrophically, ended up being used by Nationalists against each other.”
Debono had clashed repeatedly with Gonzi’s PN government for not taking on board a range of constitutional proposals he had drafted up and for not giving him a role in government or Parliament despite having received the most PN votes in his district. Eventually, his vote against the Budget in 2012 famously brought down the government, forcing the country into an election which Labour won by a landslide.
In his interview with iNews, Debono warned that the former Prime Minister’s failure to disassociate the PN from Caruana Galizia ultimately led to the collapse of the party.
“The PN will never regain its strength until Gonzi repents and issues a public apology for allowing the party to be taken over by politics of hatred”
Franco Debono
“This is the fulcrum of everything, this is the microbe that caused the PN’s sickness. The media can interview a million people but no one is in tune with the party’s problems more than I am because I was one of the first to flag these problems and offer solutions to them. The PN will never regain its strength until Gonzi repents and issues a public apology for allowing the party to be taken over by politics of hatred. If he doesn’t do so, if he doesn’t apologise to the thousands of people who were insulted, hurt and ridiculed by the style of politics he had cultivated, then the PN will end up consuming itself from within. Form the bottom of my heart, I urge Gonzi to take this courageous step, for his own good, for the good of the party and for the good of the country.”
The results of a July 2017 survey among PN voters
Debono said he disagreed with PN leader Adrian Delia’s original decision to request the resignation of his predecessor Simon Busuttil, arguing that the PN needs all hands on deck if it is to recover and form a strong and credible Opposition.
However, he refused to get drawn into speculation on whether he will consider making a return to the PN, only recounting how several PN supporters had urged him to do so following last year’s electoral defeat. This sentiment was gauged through a survey carried out among PN voters by statistician Vincent Marmara at Debono’s request.
“Thousands of genuine Nationalists encouraged me to return because they knew that I had a point, that I did what I did because I loved the PN,” he said. “I believe that everyone realises that, while I am not perfect, my intentions were always genuine and that I had some very good proposals which the party should have taken note of.”
READ NEXT: This Is How I Helped Bring About Constitutional Reform In Malta
