Adrian Delia and the defeat of the Establishment
Two events dominated last week’s news. The first one was the initial phase of the PN’s leadership election concluded on Saturday with a predictable result. Probably even more interesting was the news around the internal manoeuvres orchestrated at TalPietà
Dr Simon Mercieca is senior lecturer, Department of History he story has turned the election into a farce inflicting irreparable damage to the image of the Nationalist Party as a democratic party. It is not a question of whether Adrian Delia should have considered backing down from the leadership race, but that of exposing the manipulative manner that this sequence of events was orchestrated by TalPietà.
The manoeuvres to eliminate Delia in this first phase united all the anti-establishment voters to back one candidate, who in their opinion, appeared to be strong enough to defy the TalPieta’ clique. On the other hand, Simon Busuttil’s faction committed another cardinal blunder, and instead of putting its weight behind one candidate, to make him appear victorious, oscillated their preferences from Chris Said onto Alex PericiCalascione, with the result, that it ended up weakening Said, while their anointed candidate got eliminated.
Adrian Delia may or may not be the best candidate to lead a party; though he is undoubtedly the best orator of the four. However, I cannot but express my solidarity with Delia because of the way he was treated by the party. It beggars belief.
Last week’s manipulations reminded me of Sebag Montefiore’s brilliant work on Stalin wherein is outlined the modus operandi of Stalin’s reign. The way the PN establishment has been acting lately is reminiscent of the Communist Party under Stalin, when henchmen were used to eliminate those who crossed his way of thinking and could be potential political opponents. For Stalin, the easiest way to get rid of a threat, in particular, when the individuals could endanger party incumbents, was to ask trusted collaborators to call for a meeting to discuss the “rival’s” alleged wrongdoings and hypothetical ineligibility after first having sullied the individual through other hidden forces prepared to play ball and fitting the purpose.
This is precisely the action adopted by the establishment of the Nationalist Party to try and eliminate Delia. Even the manner the commission to judge ethical behaviour was appointed leaves much to be desired. Last Monday a meeting was urgently convened whereby the decision was taken to set up an ‘Ethics Committee’ and a board was duly appointed. I do not believe that all the members of this Ethics Commission Board were members of the Administrative Council. But all accepted immediately. For this to have happened, these board members must have been contacted before the meeting took place and asked whether they were prepared to sit on this Ethical Commission.
Meanwhile, PN Councillor, Charlot Cassar - an intimate collaborator of Simon Busuttil – petitioned the administration. His request was met and the Administrative Council met with urgency to discuss Delia. Clearly, the intention from the start was to frame Delia. The party that historically had fought against frame-ups became a perpetrator of such wrongdoing. The given maxim that one is not guilty until proven so no longer applies in this leadership race.
Anyone can write and spread vile accusations without presenting tangible and irrefutable proof. Thanks to freedom of expression, we carry on destroying individuals without presenting concrete evidence and yet we prey on the gullibility of the masses to get away with it. I am happy that the PN councillors did not fall into this trap.
In the process, the contradictions in the current PN’s political logic come to the fore. A number of my readers accuse me of being obsessed that in the last four years, the Nationalist Party has become a Marxist party. Yes, it has been continuously applying Marxist methodology in its political operandi with disastrous results. Not only is it a case that the Nationalist Party is now seeking to emulate Stalinist tactics, but it has also been conquered by the concept of relativism.
The fact remains that Simon Busuttil and his team have led the party onto a new liberal path. Therefore, I am not interested in whether Delia was involved with the world of prostitution or not. What I am interested in is that we now have a Nationalist Party that under Simon Busuttil has embraced gay marriages, is openly in favour of legalizing drugs and is hand-in-hand with Muscat’s government on the issue of legalizing prostitution.
Lest we have forgotten, Muscat himself has made the issue of the legalizing prostitution one of the points of his social revolution. The Nationalist Party did not oppose this stand. On the contrary, the PN has backed Labour’s stand on all these counts.
Next comes the Delia factor and as soon as Delia appears to be winning, prostitution becomes morally wrong for the PN Establishment.
And what can be said about the fact that Simon Busuttil asked Delia, prior to election to be a candidate of the Nationalist Party? Adrian Delia declined. I am sure that had he accepted, the Internal Commission, led by Joe Borg, to vet candidates would have accepted him with open arms. Delia’s connection with prostitution goes back to 2003 yet up to 2017, the Nationalist Party had no objection that a lawyer, who defended families, allegedly involved in prostitution, would be one of its star candidates. Questions started to be asked only when Delia appeared to have become a potential party leader capable of replacing Simon Busuttil.
The Bajada family, who are at the centre of this whole controversy, are well known to Simon Busuttil. A member of the family has written on The Malta Independent portal and stated that he was approached by Simon Busuttil to help him in his campaign to become deputy leader of the PN. Therefore, these “stories” should have been known to Busuttil. The obvious question here is why is Delia suitable to be a star election candidate for the PN but not good to lead the party?
We next have a second important bit of news. We are told that Simon Busuttil has been asked to sit on a board in Luxembourg to oversee the appointment of judges of the European Court. Many have acclaimed this as a great achievement and a confirmation of Busuttil’s political integrity. Let us be realistic. These appointments do not come out of the blue and are not made on the spur of the moment. Much preliminary legwork is needed.
Once again, we here have another explanation as to why the Nationalist Party has been advocating a liberal agenda. I am sure that Busuttil was being groomed for the post over months if not years. Therefore, he needed to build a portfolio to make himself acceptable for this post by showing that he had embraced the liberal/Marxist agenda.
In Europe today, these posts are being filled by individuals who can show that they are anticlerical and anti-Catholic and what better testimonial for a candidate to state that he has supported same sex marriages in Malta? Busuttil needed to show his friends in Brussels that he has turned his party into a completely secular institution in order to avoid suffering the same fate of the Italian philosopher and politician, Rocco Buttiglione, who was turned down for the post of commissioner in Brussels simply because he was overtly Catholic.
For this reason, I am sure that there is a link between Busuttil’s decision not to allow a free-vote on same sex marriage and this appointment in Luxembourg. This is the only way to make headway with the socialist-cumliberal commissioners in Brussels. Instead of being a principled leader, Busuttil chose to abandon party principles for a lucrative post. This is why, when he now speaks of righteousness, he cannot be taken seriously. He has lost all credibility.
This also goes to explain why the negative campaign against Delia has backfired. The more Adrian Delia was presented as not fit to be party leader, the more he garnished support with the grassroots of the Nationalist Party. The PN grassroots ended up seeing in Delia a saviour that can rid them of an establishment that practised politics of exclusion and did not endorse politics for the benefit of Malta, but for their own personal gain.