[WATCH] I will take PN to next general election, Adrian Delia says ruling out confidence vote

I will take PN to next general election, Adrian Delia says ruling out confidence vote

Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia has said he does not agree with Mark Anthony Sammut, the president of the party’s executive committee, who resigned from his post today while calling on others to do the same.

Delia was addressing journalists outside the party’s headquarters following an eventful day, which saw former MP Jean Pierre Debono elected back to parliament.

At the start of the meeting, Mark Anthony Sammut, the president of the party’s executive committee, submitted his resignation, in light of the PN’s dismal showing in last Saturday’s elections.

“Mark Anthony Sammut felt that responsibility needs to taken by resigning. It appears to me that my political responsibility is to do all I can, to restructure the party for the next general election, as the PN’s members trusted me to do,” Delia said.

Debono will replace David Stellini, who resigned from parliament this week. He beat Goztian councilor Kevin Cutajar with 42 votes to 40.

Since Stellini’s resignation, a number of MPs who are believed to be in opposition to Delia’s leadership, stated publicly that they believed Cutajar should take the seat in parliament, rather than Debono, a Delia ally.

He again emphasized that the PN needed to reflect on the result from last Saturday’s elections. “We need to understand what message people are giving us,” he said, insisting that the message being sent was that the PN has no divine right to govern.

“The people want the Nationalist Party to continue changing before it can make a claim to being an alternative government,” he said.

Asked whether he was confident that he had the faith of the party and parliamentary group, the PN leader again insisted that there were mechanisms within the party’s structure through which members could remove him.

“I am calm and have a clear conscience and am prepared for any form of scrutiny,” he said.

'I have no more time for Jason Azzopardi'

Delia was also asked about comments posted online by MP Jason Azzopardi, who said: “So those who had no part in laying out the political strategy still took responsibility and resigned. But those who devised and implemented it, couldn’t care less. That’s an establishment for you!”

“I think I will ignore Jason Azzopardi because this is not the first time he has done this, actually he has done it on a number of occasions,” Delia said, emphasizing that such comments only did harm to the party.

“Jason Azzopardi also needs to take responsibility and he needs to explain his behaviour to the people.”

He said he had always tried to work with Azzopardi but did not believe that he should waste any more time with him.

Asked whether he would be asking Azzopardi to resign from the party, Delia said he would not do so, but said that “the people would pass their own judgement”.