The decision to erect a monument in honour of former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici has garnered mixed reactions, with his own niece saying he would have been “saddened” by this plan.Prime Minister Robert Abela shared a scale photo of what the monument set to be completed in November to mark the third anniversary of his death. A €150,000 budget was allocated for its design and construction and it will be placed alongside existing statues of former prime ministers Dom Mintoff, Paul Boffa, and George Borg Olivier.However, some have criticised the decision to erect a statue in KMB’s honour due to the violent political unrest that marked his time as Prime Minister. View this post on InstagramA post shared by Lovin Malta (@lovinmalta)“I have great respect for Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici as a human being. One of the most helpful, humble, gentle, selfless persons, if ever there was. He also has the political merit of having started to clean up the MLP when he stopped Lorry Sant from contesting elections in 1992,” Momentum leader Arnold Cassola wrote on social media.“However, he is also the author of some of the biggest socially disruptive cock-ups in our political history: law courts assault and church schools crisis in primis.”Cassola went on to quote KMB’s niece who said “an alternative way of honouring his memory could have been a scholarship fund for supporting specialist education in industrial law, which was so close to his heart.”Agnes Bezzina’s full statement explained that KMB wouldn’t have wanted €150,000 spent on a monument of him. She described him as a man of humility, compassion, selflessness, a true advocate of the working class with a legacy lying in his strong concern for social justice and his dedication to advocate for the voiceless.“The many who loved him did not need a statue to remember him: he will never be forgotten for the values and principles that he shared and imparted.”Cassola argued that this exercise is “an excuse for the self agrandisment of Robert Abela and his delinquent predecessor, Joseph Muscat. Laying the ground that all Prime Ministers, irrespective of behaviour, should be honoured with a monument.”“Which means that one day future generations will be lumped with the monument of the Invictus who supped, dined and wined with the man he knew to be suspected of Daphne’s assassination.”“And another one of Robert Abela, who trampled upon Jean Paul Sofia’s memory twice: first by refusing a public inquiry and secondly by reinstating the accused of involuntary homicide, while proceedings were still under way.”Outspoken lawyer Georg Sapiano shared a similar statement, calling this decision a “monumental mistake”.Sapiano drew back to his two years working under KMB as a legal trainee, saying this experience led him to understand his legacy.“He believed in dignified work for everybody , in the evils of the EU which condemned swathes to ‘structural unemployment’, in the obligation of the Labour Party to be a voice for the downtrodden. I think he would have been very disappointed by Joseph Muscat’s Labour Party and by Robert Abela’s who has done nothing to take it back to its roots.”Sapiano went on to say that thought of KMB’s reaction to Robert Abela’s request to perpetuate his memory in marble or granite makes him “laugh out loud”.“He would have pursed his lips , looked down and then chuckled quietly. But tell him that this is part of a self-serving plan to erect a statue for every PM and he would have become upset: “ aħjar jagħtu l-flus lil min għandu bżonnhom “ he’d have said.”What do you think about the decision to erect this statue?•