Marthese Portelli has just announced her resignation as a Nationalist MP.

In her resignation message, Portelli thanked Opposition leader Adrian Delia and his predecessor Simon Busuttil for trusting her with sensitive portfolios but said politics should be about persuading people and not about “shouting and insults”.

Lovin Malta understands that a parliamentary group meeting was held yesterday, during which Mario Galea and Hermann Schiavone had a shouting match with Delia, which ended with Galea storming out of the meeting.

“I’d like to thank my friends in the Opposition for the long hours of work we spent discussing proposals for the country to move forwards,” she said. “I’d also like to thank the government MPs, particularly those who took an interest in our proposals and suggestions. From the bottom of my heart, I’d like to thank the Maltese and Gozitans who believed and supported my parliamentary work, so much so that I was elected from two districts.”

“Politics must be used to foster the common good and I thank all those who enter politics to do good. I’ll treasure these past seven years of parliamentary work for the rest of my life; they taught me a lot, I met many people and did my utmost for our country to keep progressing.”

“I never held back from criticising things I felt were incorrect or which could have been handled better. I was proactive and indeed submitted over 300 proposals in Parliament,.”

“While I thank the MPs for their hard work in the best interest of the people, I’d like to urge everyone to only work for what is right and what is in the national interest through politics of persuasion and not politics of shouting and insults.”

Portelli was first elected to Parliament in 2013 and was subsequently re-elected in the 2017 election. She has shadowed several key portfolios over the years, including transport, energy, planning and the environment.