Several thousand people filled a square in Malta’s capital on Saturday and demanded the resignation of the prime minister, Joseph Muscat, after the Panama Papers said two of his political allies had offshore accounts.

“Shame on you – you are shaming Malta. You have lost the moral authority to govern,” the opposition leader, Simon Busuttil, said to applause.

The rally, organised by the opposition outside the prime minister’s office in Valletta, drew no official comment from Muscat. He said last week that he would take a decision on the future of his two allies when he knew all the facts and on the basis of public sentiment.

The Nationalist party opposition wants the removal of the health and energy minister, Konrad Mizzi, who is also deputy leader of Muscat’s Labour party, and the prime minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri. It has presented a parliamentary motion of no confidence in the government, which has been in power since 2013. Both Mizzi and Schembri have denied any wrongdoing.