PN Electoral Commission reacts to Delia airtime complaint

Earlier today, Delia complained that he was being discriminated against by his own party’s radio station, which he said, had sidelined him in favour of interviewing Grech on Saturday morning

Bernard Grech and Adrian Delia
Bernard Grech and Adrian Delia

The PN electoral commission has reacted to Opposition Leader Adrian Delia’s Facebook post complaining about an interview with his leadership rival Bernard Grech this morning.

Earlier today, Delia complained that he was being discriminated against by his own party’s radio station, which he said, had sidelined him in favour of interviewing Grech on Saturday morning.

In a reply this afternoon, Peter Fenech, the chairman of the party’s electoral commission explained that the PN statute ensured that every resource, social media and media belonging to the party had to be used in an “equal, just and entirely balanced manner.”

Despite the special circumstances which the party was going through, the commission had always strived to fulfil its obligation to ensure a balance with regards the two candidates’ use of party media, it said. It had always recognised the Delia’s role as Leader of the Opposition and had never refused his requests to speak on PN media, protested the commission.

The electoral commission had issued a weekly schedule of programmes to balance out broadcasts between the two candidates, giving both 30 minutes and alternate starting slots, it said. Last night, Delia had been given 15 more minutes of airtime after he requested that he be allowed to speak as Leader of the Opposition in the same programme.

But this morning, Delia informed the commission that he would not be using the 15 minutes and instead insisted that he speak at 11:30am, by rights, as Leader of the Opposition.

“The Electoral Commission could not accept this position,” reads the statement.