No PN Independence Day activities due to COVID-19 restrictions

There will be no traditional PN mass meeting or rally on the eve of Independence Day this year, due to COVID 19 restrictions, PN Secre tary General Francis Zammit Dimech told The Malta Independent on Sunday.

While the PN usually holds a number of activities on the Floriana Granaries, including having the party leader interviewed by an in dependent media journalist, the fi nale of the Konkors Kanzunetta Indipendenza, and the traditional mass meeting on 20 September, this year’s activities will likely be limited to a televised fundraising marathon.

But the list of activities would likely have still been limited this year, even without the pandemic.

Sources said that, COVID 19 or not, the party is currently “totally fo cused” on the upcoming leadership election, the timing of which would probably have interfered with the Independence Day activities.

A due diligence process on the two candidates for the leadership election Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech is currently underway. The process can take up to six weeks. If the maximum amount of time is used, the process would finish on 20 September. The election would likely be held within a matter of days, a few weeks at most.

A source said it would not make sense to have the current party leader address a political event on 20 September, when there is a chance that he would no longer be the party leader the following week.

When contacted by this news room, Zammit Dimech said the main reason why the party would not be holding any of the usual events is the COVID 19 restrictions. Under new regulations, mass gath erings are limited to 15 people. The new restrictions were put in place after the recent surge in Coron avirus cases.

Zammit Dimech said the party was still discussing the programme and would be celebrating Inde pendence Day in the “appropriate” way. This could include a TV fundraiser, but the details are still being discussed, he said.

Independence Day is somewhat of a sacred occasion for the Nation alist Party, although the scale of ac tivities has dwindled down over recent years. Up until a few years ago, tens of thousands would at tend the final mass meeting on the Granaries, but the number of sup porters who attended the event shrank so much over the past five years that the party recently moved the event to the area in front of its headquarters in Pieta`. The pro gramme which used to include everything from political discus sions, to food stands, children’s playgrounds and live bands was also cut down in size in a bid to cut costs.