People voted on issues that affected them personally - Ann Fenech

No major issue overshadowed the last election, giving people the chance to vote on issues that affected them personally, according to PN's executive president Ann Fenech. She said this was one of the main reasons the PN lost so colossally despite such a good performance in Government in an extremely difficult international context. "There was another important element. The Nationalist Party spent 25 years in Government, besides two years which everyone forgets... We believe nothing we could have done - even if we were all gilded in gold - could have changed the fact that people wanted change," she told tonight's PN general council, themed "forward" ('il quddiem). The lead author of the PN's defeat report added that each of the hundreds of points listed in the document was used by voters as an "excuse" or "justification" to refrain from voting PN or go a step further and vote Labour. In her first formal speech as a party official, Dr Fenech elaborated on one point mentioned in the report: that Labour leader Joseph Muscat benefited from the death of Labour icon Dom Mintoff. She said that after going out of his way to distance himself from his party's history and reach out to people...