Malta PM Calls Snap Election

Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has called a snap general election for June 3, a year before his term ends. The opposition has been calling for his resignation over allegations that his wife owned an offshore company in Panama, BBC reported. Muscat and his wife, Michelle, deny the claims. A magisterial inquiry is underway. He said “truth is on my side”, but that he wanted to protect Malta from uncertainty. The current scandal erupted earlier this month when the blogger Daphne Caruna Galizia made the claims, which she based on documents from the so-called Panama Papers, a leak of millions of files from the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca. “Everybody knows about the attacks made in the past few days on me and my family. I have nothing to fear because truth is on my side and I am clean,” Muscat said on Monday. The country is enjoying record low unemployment and economic growth of over 3.5%. But anti-corruption protesters took to the streets against Muscat’s government last week.