PN commission asked to investigate 'banned voters' claim as pre-election crossfire intensifies

PN leadership candidate Chris Said has written to the party's electoral commission asking it to investigate complaints by paid-up party members who claim to have been denied their right to vote as the internal crossfire between rival PN camps intensifies.

“I have asked the commission to investigate the claims and uncover whoever is behind this. If need be, the commission must also provide a public explanation,” said Said. “I wish to add that a lifetime member's right to vote is sacrosanct.”

The announcement is the last in a series of tit-for-tat media allegations and rebuttals over allegations that the current PN leadership was attempting to prevent candidate Adrian Delia from becoming the next leader of the party.

On Sunday the PN issued an official denial to reports published in Maltese-language newspaper Illum which alleged that party representatives were conducting a door-to-door and telephone campaign to convince eligible voters against voting for Delia. “Every member of the PN is free to choose who he or she believes who is the best candidate to lead the PN in the coming years, according to his conscience.”

Every person who has paid their annual party membership at least once over the past five years has the right to vote in Saturday's election but members who have not paid the past two years' membership will be required to do so to be issued their voting document. “Every life member, obvsiously, will qualify to vote.”

But an article published in the Malta Independent the following Tuesday reported that a number of lifetime paid-up PN members had discovered that they had been mysteriously struck off the party's voting register with no reason being given.

This led to a second statement by the PN, issued earlier today, categorically denying the Malta Independent's report and insisting that every eligible voter had been issued with a voting document.

Life-long members who had renounced their membership at some point in the past were automatically ineligible to vote in Saturday's election, reads the statement. Starting in June, the electoral commission had written to every eligible voter and had also offered those who had not received their voting document but believed themselves eligible to contact the party and make their case, it says.