ANALYSIS | Delia’s second act: Reinvention or déjà vu?

It’s 2025, and watching Adrian Delia step forward once again in a Nationalist Party leadership contest feels almost surreal.

Some might call it perseverance, others would call it delusional.

Back in 2020, Delia lost the support of his parliamentary group, the party executive, and ultimately a leadership election to Bernard Grech. He was unceremoniously ousted from the PN’s top post. So, seeing him once again in the hot seat for a leadership race interview with MaltaToday, inevitably brings back memories of those hot, sticky summer evenings spent outside Dar Ċentrali, waiting endlessly for a half-comment from MPs.

But the key question is: Has Adrian Delia truly grown as a political figure, or is it simply that Bernard Grech’s failures now cast him in a more favourable light?

Pressed on how he intends to lead MPs, who once played a pivotal role in his downfall, Delia insists the hatchet has long been buried. In fact, he claims some were among the first to back his return. That makes for a tidy narrative during a leadership campaign, but one must ask whether Delia can genuinely unify the parliamentary group when faced with the relentless machine of the Labour Party. 

Labour already has a well-worn playbook for taking on Delia—one that’s proved effective in the past. That’s where Alex Borg arguably holds an advantage. The Gozitan MP is younger, untested by Labour, and free from baggage.

Yet, in his attempts to showcase renewed unity, Delia risks alienating one of his staunchest allies—Alex Borg himself. As he did in other interviews, Delia told me without hesitation that an agreement between the two had been broken.

Nonetheless, I found Delia to be unrestrained in his praise for Borg and his potential, particularly as a Gozitan leader. But should Delia reclaim the party helm, he will need to tread carefully in deciding how to deploy one of the PN’s few bright stars in what is fast becoming an ever-dimming Nationalist sky.

His predecessor, it’s worth recalling, stumbled when faced with a similar dilemma in Roberta Metsola. Under mounting pressure, he eventually faced a barrage of questions over whether she would take his place.

On Metsola, Delia insists he does not see himself as a mere placeholder. “It’s not in my character,” he told me when I pressed on the matter. He added it would be wrong for anyone to enter the leadership race with such a mindset. But Delia’s biggest challenge in the short term lies in the PN’s sense of purpose.

For a leadership candidate to say that the party’s vision will be shaped after a “convention” is puzzling to me, especially given that we’re talking about a party with nearly a century of history and less than two years away from a general election.

One would expect a prospective leader to come in with bold ideas, setting the agenda from the outset, rather than deferring direction to a drawn-out gathering of what could be the usual suspects.

It’s all well and good to talk about a “mosaic of people and ideologies”, but when it comes to taking clear, principled stances on ethical and controversial issues, the PN has often been inconsistent, and it has paid the price for it. This ambiguity contrasts with Delia’s clear and determined response when I asked him where he stood on euthanasia if government’s proposal is tabled as a bill—he will vote against.

Delia’s clarity will have to be reconciled with the PN’s ambiguity, which more often than not has played directly into Labour’s hands.

In the end, I feel Adrian Delia 2.0 is a more polished and composed version of his former self. But whether the skeletons in his closet have truly turned to dust, or whether his real problems are only just beginning, is a question that only his party, his MPs, and ultimately the electorate can answer.