Bernard Grech ready to throw his hat in the ring if PN goes for leadership race

he lawyer Bernard Grech (pictured) has emerged as a possible contender for the leadership of the Nationalist Party.

Grech told 103.FM, the Church-owned radio station, that he had been taking advice on a possible campaign earlier on to run in the forthcoming general election.

“I had decided back in January, declaring it publicly, that I would be ready to serve if the party called… I had been asked to run for MEP by Adrian Delia himself. In January I said I would contest the general election. Now we are heading on a democratic path towards a possible party leadership contest, and I have to decide what I will do then.”

Grech said that he was ready to be “the party’s janitor” if it served the PN’s interest, indicating that he could contest the party leadership if he felt it would help the PN serve the country better. “I never excluded anything… does the country need me? At this moment in time, I think there is someone who can bring unity, a certain attitude, a certain mentality to the table. But everyone has to unite behind this person.”

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Grech said the PN needed someone like Eddie Fenech Adami, the prime minister who took Malta into the EU, who can unite all people inside the party. “When you can put all the various voices into one choir, that’s when the PN can unite and be strong. Fenech Adami did this. You cannot win an election just with ‘PN votes’. The PN can win with the votes of all those who truly recognise it as a party that has the country’s best interests at heart.”

Grech described Labour as “a party of capitalists” that was ignoring small businesses and other families hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Grech, a one-time campaigner against the legislation of divorce in Malta, acknowledged the split inside the PN but insisted that the factionalism hailed from within the party grassroots rather than a reflection of the divided parliamentary group. “The groups inside the PN are reflecting what the grassroots are saying… we are there to be the peoples’ voice – not just inside the parliament – but also inside the party. The internal split is a result of what the people out there bring to the table.”

Unhappy with the theory, the Newsbook interviewer – Fr Joe Borg – brought out the abortion wild card, blithely asking: “But if people tell you they ‘want abortion’ do you go and do just that?”

Skirting a facile rejection of the issue, Grech instead told the priest: “We’re talking about principles, and abortion is one such principle that has to be discussed. If people say they ‘want abortion’, you are obliged to discuss it. You don’t just decide, or let others decide for you; however, you are obliged to discuss it – and issue a position on what people think… Back in the day the Church felt it had the key to the truth. Out there, people think it differently: we have to recognise that reality.”

The Nationalist Party has been wracked with party in-fighting after a split inside the parliamentary group that has been unhappy with Adrian Delia’s leadership ever since his election in 2017. In the last weeks, Delia suffered two motions of no-confidence, first among MPs – who attempted to get Therese Comodini Cachia installed as Opposition leader, unsuccessfully; then inside the party’s executive committee.

The conciliatory Grech showed himself adept at doing media, praising Delia’s “humility” in agreeing to a compromise motion inside the party’s national executive, to put the fate of his leadership in the hands of the General Council. “He has chosen the democratic path: he wants the councillors to decide whether to ask members to vote on a confidence vote, or to launch a leadership election.”

The PN’s councillors – delegates from all PN organs, district and local branches, MPs and party officials – now have to decide whether they should either ask paid-up members to vote on a motion of confidence in Delia alone; or kick-start a leadership election right away for members to vote on.

Delia has said that he will be contesting such a leadership race should councillors decide.