Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said today that he was seeking a secret vote of confidence in his leadership of the Nationalist Party.
Concluding an extraordinary meeting of the PN General Council, Dr Gonzi said he was writing to the President of the PN council, seeking a secret vote in his leadership. The councillors, he said, would also be asked to state if they would rather have a new leader. Should that be the case, he would support a new leader unconditionally.
Dr Gonzi made his declaration at the end of an hour-long speech in which he never mentioned Franco Debono by name, but said that what happened on Thursday (when Dr Debono abstained in the no-confidence vote in parliament) meant that it was not business as usual for the government.
He said he was assuming responsibility for the decisions he had taken. In hindsight, some decisions could have been taken differently, he said. But undeniably, the government's policies had yielded results and the country was performing better than its neighbours.
Should he win the confidence vote, Dr Gonzi said, he would use all his energy to ensure that this government continued to serve until the end of this...
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