PN undecided if Independence Day celebrations will be held at the Granaries

The Nationalist Party is still evaluating all the possible options as to where it will hold this year’s Independence Day celebrations, the party’s secretary general said.

Asked by MaltaToday whether there was any truth to the rumours that the PN might organise 2019's celebrations at the party’s Dar Centrali in Pieta instead of the Granaries in Floriana, Clyde Puli would neither confirm nor deny. He insisted the location had not yet been chosen.

Puli, however, did not rule out that the party could break with tradition and change the venue of the Independence Day activities, saying that if it did, it wouldn’t be the first time this happened.

“We are considering all the options… But it wouldn’t be the first time they weren’t held at the Granaries,” Puli said. “Nothing is decided as of yet, however.”

The PN's Independence Day celebrations - commemorating the day Malta gained independence from Britain on 21 September, 1964 - are generally spread over the period of a few days and traditionally culminate in a mass meeting.

In 2015, the PN moved away from its tradition of using the Granaries as the venue for its celebrations, and instead held them inside Valletta in the environs of the new parliament building.

The decision, taken under Simon Busuttil’s leadership, was at the time met with a negative reaction from grassroot activists, who felt the PN was abandoning its yearly tradition by moving away from Il-Fosos.

The rumours that the PN may be organising this year's celebrations at its own headquarters have been met with derision in some closed WhatsApp groups used by PN activists.

It is unclear whether the party's indecision boils down to a lack of funds or the fear that people will not turn up after a bruising confidence vote, which Adrian Delia won last month.

The confidence vote showed that almost a third of PN councillors do not trust the leader.