PN’s executive committee to meet again on Tuesday to discuss General Council

The Nationalist Party’s executive committee will be meeting on Tuesday to continue discussing the 27 July general council meeting, during which a vote of confidence on party leader Adrian Delia is set to be taken.

Delia has previously said that he called the general council after a petition organised by his opponents contained several invalid signatures. That decision was taken during a marathon meeting of the executive held on 3 July.

The party announced at the time that a special electoral commission, chaired by veteran MP Francis Zammit Dimech, would oversee the process.

Since then, the people behind the anti-Delia petition, which include Mark Anthony Sammut and former election candidate Ivan Bartolo (not the MP), have cried foul, insisting that the list of those eligible to vote has been changed and that the wording of the question has been altered.

The party has rejected these claims, insisting that the voting list was frozen on the day the general council was convened and that the wording of the confidence motion question has remained the same.

The rules to be followed by the general council are established by the party statute and by what was decided in the last executive committee meeting, the PN has said.

In a statement yesterday, the PN said Tuesday’s meeting had been called by newly-elected executive committee president Alex Perici Calascione, after he had held meetings with Adrian Delia, party secretary general Clyde Puli, Mark Anthony Sammut and Francis Zammit Dimech.

The party has also said that the commission chaired by Zammit Dimech is made up of seven members, including two members of Elcom and two representatives from each of the two groups of petitioners (those in favour or against Delia’s leadership). All votes cast during the general council meeting will have to be verified by the commission.

The party has said that, while it ‘holds dear’ the values of democracy, rule of law, justice and freedom of expression, it is looking forward for a discussion ‘based on facts’.

“The commission chaired by Zammit Dimech is made up of seven members, including two members of Elcom and two representatives from each of the two groups of petitioners