Chris Fearne Deflects Growing Labour Leadership Talk With Plea For Prime Minister Joseph Muscat To Break His Word
Chris Fearne (left) with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Finance Minister Edward Scicluna
Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne attempted to deflect the focus of his Labour leadership ambition by publicly urging Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to break his promise to step down before the next general election.
“The most important reason why the entire population and all Laburisti should get out and vote in next year’s MEP and local council elections is to send a clear signal to Joseph Muscat that we want him to stay on as our leader and lead us to a third general election victory,” Fearne said at a political rally in Isla.
Fearne’s rallying cry came hours after MaltaToday reported that his campaign to succeed Muscat has prompted Labour CEO Randolph De Battista to ban canvassing for potential leadership contestants at the PL headquarters.
Quoting anonymous government sources, the newspaper said Fearne’s leadership campaign has “gone into overdrive” since the recent publication of a survey which ranked Transport Minister Ian Borg as the most popular minister by far.
In his speech today, Fearne repeatedly referred to his audience as Laburisti (Labour voters), a clear departure from Muscat’s strategy of rarely referring to people by their political colours and of insisting that he leads a ‘movement’ rather than a ‘party’. In a potential attempt to attract more hardcore Labour voters to his cause, Fearne stressed how he had struck up a personal friendship with Dom Mintoff and revealed two pearls of political wisdom that the late Labour Prime Minister had revealed to him.
“Dom Mintoff had told me there are two main ingredients for a party’s success,” Fearne said. “Firstly, it must know what it stands for. The Labour Party has always had clear values and a clear vision – that of ensuring a a good and dignified life for all, of ensuring national stability and tranquility, of free and excellent healthcare and education, of justice, social justice, social services, security in out streets, a clean environment and social rights for minorities. This is what we stand for, because we were Laburisti, we are Laburisti, and we will remain Laburisti.”
“The second thing Mintoff thought me was that you also need to be a winning party, because ultimately it is useless having a vision on paper if you’re not in government to implement it. We have found that winning formula in Joseph Muscat, who has transformed us from a party that used to lose election after election into a party that doesn’t even consider the possibility of losing elections.”
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