This is a translation of the speech:
When Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated many were shocked. But few were surprised.
For many years, and most of all in the last several months of her life, they stripped her of her human dignity. All that was left to do was to strip her of her life.
When they dressed her in the robes of a witch they were not being funny. We all know the fate of witches.
We are not talking of witches today. We speak of traitors.
He pretends to be tame and endowed with patient rationality: but when Owen Bonnici came back from Strasbourg last week he defended his lies to European Parliamentarians in patriotic terms. ‘I will not speak badly of Malta with foreigners’.
This is an old line. Malta first and foremost. In the face of foreigners, my country, right or wrong.
Those who do not abide by this maxim are traitors. We all know the fate of traitors.
Yes, Minister Bonnici. My country, right or wrong. If right, to be kept right. And if wrong, to be set right.
The patriotism that says ‘my country right or wrong’ neglects eternal laws. It is like saying ‘my mother: drunk or sober’.
To love our country, our country must first be lovely.
For our country to be lovely again, we must see who is truly betraying her.
There are indeed traitors in our midst.
It is those who lie and do not even mind getting caught that betray Malta. Those who go to Strasbourg and lie in the face of facts. Those who silence those who, out of love for Malta, speak clearly and denounce wrongdoing.
There are those who mock us as holier than thou. Our holiness is not the question.
What matters is that Joseph Muscat is crippling the sustainability of Malta. If you do not look under the blankets he has laid out you will not know it. You will think we can provide for our children from an economy of cranes, of gamblers and of hashish.
This is smoke. Here now. Tomorrow, who knows?
Then the foundations of real contributors to our economy are being undermined. After the compromises, the confusion, the cheating and the lies, our country will no longer be trusted as a financial services centre. As we close our eyes to what is happening in our waters, this will end up a pirate island. Pirates live in our homes and the rest avoid our country.
Joseph Muscat will feel no consequence of any of this. He has set himself up. He’s had enough time to dig, bury and dust off any trace.
Next, he’ll take a position in Europe and he’ll be cleansed of shadow. Our children will stay behind to carry the burden of the consequences.
Can you see who the real traitors are?
Are David Casa and Roberta Metsola traitors – they who have fought daily for Malta to remember the right path?
Or is Joseph Muscat the traitor – he who made of Malta his personal fief, squeezing her in a mortar cushioned under a blanket of lies?
The true patriots are here. Here are those who are fighting for a free Malta. Free from deceit, from corruption and from the slavery of organised crime so deeply rooted in the government of our country.
On Monday we are invited as Repubblika to the President’s office to meet her as well as the Labour and Nationalist parties. They invited us to give them our proposals for a new Constitution.
We all know the challenges. We did not quite need the Venice Commission to spell them out. Ye it’s a good thing they did as a lot of the empty talk we had to suffer has now faded.
Change is needed.
But here’s our answer. The Constitution is a pact between the people and those whom the people temporarily appoint to govern. Political parties are on one side of that contract. They can’t simply agree amongst themselves how to restrain their own powers whilst we simply watch them shake hands.
Before we go into any details, let us first discuss the process. We are making it abundantly clear that we will let no one scare us into silence by branding us traitors. We will raise the alarm if and when we see politicians grasp more power than it is absolutely necessary to lend them in the interest of us all.
We at Repubblika have an enormous responsibility. Maltese civil society — those people who have no hopes for position or for power from a new Constitution — must be the guardians and the speakers for the people in negotiations with parties who bargain on their own behalf.
We seek your support. We need your financial help to mobilise the resources we need for this crucial task.
For those in political parties who intend to wag their tongues to cut off ours, it should be clear that we have all permits required by law to raise funds for this aim.
Help us and join us in Repubblika to give a proper contribution to our community. We are tonight distributing forms for those who wish to join our movement.
Call us witches. Call us traitors. But for us, our children come first. We want to leave to them a country in better shape than the one we inherited it in. Clearly, we are not on the right path for that objective. We have to be the ones to put our country back on the right path.
Thank you.