[WATCH] Delia wants respectable debate inside PN for meaningful reform

PN leader Adrian Delia has described the appointment of party grandee Louis Galea, the former PN education minister, as head of think tank AZAD to lead crucial party reforms, reflected popular wishes.

Interviewed on party radio Net FM, Delia said Galea had been entrusted to analyse the party’s sectional committees and branches. “I feel the whole party backs my decision of appointing Louis Galea,” he said.

Galea has been granted access to all internal meetings of the party, and will be required to draw up a report by next year, which will be the basis for a political reform within the PN. 

Delia said the PN had to also take a hard look at its own political situation. “With Galea at the helm of AZAD, he will be able to implement the experience he has garnered throughout his years in politics. AZAD has always served as the core of our ideas at the PN, and we already have received a good reaction from people who feel the party is moving forward,” Delia said.

The appointment of Galea comes after a PN executive meeting this week in which Delia accepted to submit himself to a vote of confidence in the General Council, after over 150 councillors’ signatures were collecting for a petition.

Delia said he hopes tis will settle any internal conflicts in the party. “I wanted to call this General Council, because I want to safeguard the PN,” Delia said. 

Delia said he will still seek a vote from paid-up members in the General Congress, should he lose the confidence vote in the General Council. It is the General Congress that elects the PN leader.

“The leadership is only 22 months old, and these months have been eclipsed by all sorts of different situations,” he said. “We need to dictate the agenda together. It would be useless to point fingers and blame others. We need to see what we did to change and implement reform,” he said. 

Delia said he had no issue with internal criticism, and welcomed opinions of all shades, but said a compromise had to be reached at the end of the day, and MP had to toe the line. “If we want unity, we need to take a step back sometimes, and reduce our hate, our spitefulness and approach debate in a more respectable manner,” he said. 

“If we work together we can make change happen. At the time when other people think we should break down, we need to stand together.”

Former MEP Francis Zammit Dimech will be tasked with heading the electoral commission during the party’s General Council at the end of July. 

Delia said the country deserved a strong opposition, and a functioning and capable PN. “Unity is not enough. We already have a party in power that is immensely strong and aggressively uses its power of incumbency, therefore we must work even harder,” he stated.