Rebels MPs to take fight to General Council in bid to force leadership contest

Nationalist Party rebels are considering moving against leader Adrian Delia once more by collecting 150 signatures from councillors to call a General Council meeting to vote on Delia’s future.

If successful, the move could catalyse a new election even though the General Council would have to approve amendments to the recently-introduced statute that does not cater for such an election in extraordinary circumstances.

Alternatively, they will request the executive committee to call a vote to first convene the General Council, to lead into a call for a leadership battle.

Emboldened by a second no-confidence motion they won against Adrian Delia, rebel MPs are hoping the PN leader bows down to the pressure as the party’s infighting spreads over its various internal structures.

But insiders who spoke to MaltaToday have also mentioned the probability that a leadership battled could attract more than just one name after MPs nominated the human rights lawyer Therese Comodini Cachia as their choice for an interim Opposition leader.

Apart from heavyweights Claudio Grech and the MEP Robert Metsola, the former executive committee president Mark Anthony Sammut could be pushed into considering a bid for the leadership. Even Comodini Cachia has told her aides that she has every intention of taking a future contest seriously and campaign for the leadership.