MaltaToday Survey: PN councillors say Bernard Grech should remain leader ahead of election

PN councillors want Grech to soldier on as the party heads into a leadership election

Don’t go just yet: Bernard Grech goes into a mandatory leadership re-election without any contestants, and with general approval from over two-thirds of the PN’s General Council
Don’t go just yet: Bernard Grech goes into a mandatory leadership re-election without any contestants, and with general approval from over two-thirds of the PN’s General Council

Almost 70% of Nationalist Party councillors polled by MaltaToday believe that Bernard Grech should remain leader of the party. 

Grech is the only one so far who has declared his intention to contest the leadership election, which is obligatory after the PN lost last month’s general election. 

The survey carried out among PN councillors shows that 69.7% believe that Grech should be re-confirmed leader, while 14.2% disagree. A further 16% are undecided or did not give an answer. 

Among those who disagree with Grech’s confirmation as leader, newly-elected MP Joe Giglio emerged as an alternative with 3.6% of the vote. He was followed by Roberta Metsola and Adrian Delia, who each obtained 3%. 

The survey was carried out between Tuesday 19 April and Friday 22 April. 

The leadership race formally kicks off today when the general council meets to lay out the timeline of the contest. Grech is expected to address the council.  

The council is made up of more than 1,600 party delegates from the party’s various structures and they will be the ones to decide on the next leader if Grech remains the only contestant. If more than two candidates contest, a secret vote will first be held in the general council to whittle down the list.  

The top two will then face off in an election among party members. If only two candidates contest the leadership, the decision will be taken directly by the party’s membership base.  

In the 2020 leadership contest that saw Grech beat Adrian Delia, 18,362 card-carrying members voted. But as things stand today it is likely that members will not get a say on who the PN’s next leader will be.  

The MaltaToday survey also asked councillors to pass judgement on the electoral campaign of their party and that of the rival Labour Party. An absolute majority of 57% said the PN’s electoral campaign was ‘good’ or ‘very good’, while 10.4% judged their party’s campaign to be ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’.  

But PN councillors also gave a positive verdict of the Labour Party’s electoral campaign with a relative majority of 40.4% saying it was ‘good’ or ‘very good’. A quarter of respondents (24.9%) judged the PL campaign to be ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’.  

Asked to pass judgement on the reporting of the election campaign by State TV, PN councillors stuck to the party line with 78.9% giving TVM the thumbs down. Only 5.9% of PN councillors felt that State TV reportage was ‘good’ or ‘very good’.  

The independent media did better. While 17.5% of councillors felt reportage by the independent media was ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’, 36.8% said it was ‘good’ or ‘very good’.