Bernard Grech accuses Abela of lying over private talks

Bernard Grech has accused Robert Abela of lying about private talks the two had in 2024 over the appointment of a new president.

The former Nationalist leader was reacting to a comment the prime minister made during an exchange with the MaltaToday newsroom last week.

Abela was asked about his relations with current PN leader Alex Borg and his predecessors—Grech and Adrian Delia.

Abela had said that he had a good relationship with Grech but went on to describe what he called “the only sour episode” linked to the appointment of a new president. The confidential talks took place in 2024.

Robert Abela during the hour-long exchange with the MaltaToday newsroom during which he was asked about his relations with the current and former PN leaders, among other things

“I had presented a name to him twice and then he told this person’s family that they were not being mentioned. Other than that, we didn’t have any other major episodes,” Abela had said.

The reference was to former European Commissioner Helena Dalli, whose name had been making the rounds amid speculation of who would replace outgoing President George Vella.

When contacted about this incident, Grech took umbrage at the prime minister’s inference that he had been insincere.

“Robert Abela’s problem is that he believes his own lies—the same lies he invents to save face,” Grech told MaltaToday. “The only name he [Abela] mentioned to me during the discussions to appoint the President of Malta was Myriam Spiteri Debono.”

Grech insisted that Abela “could not and did not” mention any other name because, the then Opposition leader had made two conditions at the start of the first meeting.

“One of the conditions was that the person we were to choose could not be anyone from Joseph Muscat’s Cabinet, since the public inquiry found them responsible for creating a climate of impunity which led to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination,” Grech said.

The other condition was that the person need not necessarily be someone coming from the Labour side. “Robert Abela accepted both conditions and it was therefore on this basis that we began discussions,” Grech insisted, adding that the prime minister never brought up Helena Dalli’s name during the talks.

Eventually, both agreed on former Speaker of the House Myriam Spiteri Debono. On 27 March 2024, parliament voted unanimously to elect Spiteri Debono as Malta’s 11th president. She was the first president to be elected on the basis of new constitutional rules introduced in 2020, that require approval by a two-thirds majority in parliament. This necessitates cross-party agreement.

Helena Dalli had publicly decried the PN’s stance to oppose anyone involved in Muscat’s Cabinet because of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder. However, last year, Dalli was unilaterally chosen by the prime minister to serve as acting president whenever Spiteri Debono is indisposed.

The decision sparked controversy since the person previously chosen to serve the role—former PN minister Francis Zammit Dimech—had been agreed upon during the 2024 talks between Grech and Abela. Zammit Dimech passed away last year.

The role of acting president is not permanent and the person fulfilling it carries no official title when not serving in the post.