Anti-Delia petitioners welcome agreement on confidence vote question

They reiterated that what they were doing was in the best interest of the party and the country’s democracy

The petitioners said they were satisfied at the outcome of yesterday's executive committee meeting
The petitioners said they were satisfied at the outcome of yesterday's executive committee meeting

A group of PN members who presented the party with a petition calling for the general council to be convened for a vote of confidence in party leader Adrian Delia have expressed their satisfaction at the outcome of an executive committee meeting, which yesterday agreed on the question it could be putting to councilors.

In a statement on Wednesday, former PN election candidate Ivan Bartolo, former executive president Mark Anthony Sammut, MZPN secretary general Emma Portelli Bonnici, vice-president of the party's professionals' forum Martin Musumeci, and councillor Emvin Bartolo said they were satisfied that the committee had accepted their petition.

Last week, the petitioners wrote to executive committee president Alex Perici Calascione, claiming that the petition question had been “completely changed”, arguing that it was unacceptable for the executive to be misguided in such a manner.

This, they said, continued to strengthen the doubts they had over the current party leadership, and was discussed during a tense five-hour executive meeting yesterday.

In comments to the press following the meeting, Delia said that the committee had “unanimously and definitively” decided that councilors would be asked to vote on whether they believed he should remain leader until the next general election.

“In the spirit of compromise, and in the best interest of the party, we agreed that there should be one question that should be put to a vote, rather than three different questions or three general councils,” the members said.

The party has so far been presented with two petitions call for the general council to be convened, as well as a third request by Delia himself.

MaltaToday understands that at a point during yesterday’s meeting, it was proposed that three separate councils should be held, with councilors asked three different questions.

The petitioners said that they had agreed on the question put forward by Delia because it was ultimately still “represented a confidence vote”.

In addition to agreeing on the question, they said they were satisfied at the fact that the executive had agreed to pass on the list of councilors eligible to vote, to hold early voting, to have an extended voting period and for councilors that were removed from the list without prior notice to be given the opportunity to contest this removal.

They said that they were convinced that what they were doing was in the best interest of the party and even more so, in the best interest of the country’s democracy.

“Our country urgently needs to have a strong Nationalist Party,” the petitioners said.