Adrian Delia’s first defeats

This was the week of Adrian Delia’s coronation as PN leader. But it was also the week of his first defeats. In a way, this is understandable in a new leader with no political experience and surrounded by aides high on ambition but quite limited otherwise.

And it is more than understandable in someone who built his campaign by railing against what he called ‘the establishment’ but which, today, we still have no idea if it is still there or has been kicked out of the party.

But Central Casting, as I propose to call the murky background that planned Delia’s ascent (and Simon Busuttil’s heavy defeat) from the days of the election campaign (or maybe before that), chose a non-political person out of the blue and, having presumably reached an overall agreement with him, piloted and stage-managed his subsequent ascent.

There must have been – there were – other non-political people around, some of whom were even mentioned in the first days after Busuttil’s resignation and maybe they did not come with the baggage we now know Delia has, but somehow they did not fit in Central Casting’s parameters.

So after a campaign characterised by Delia being portrayed as the underdog, and the person targeted by Daphne, the candidate is now the Leader.

Along the way to becoming the leader, he has had to suffer a defeat or two. The first defeat came when no one could be found to voluntarily offer up his or her seat to the leader chosen by the majority of those who voted in the final leg of the campaign: not those who got into the House under their own steam, nor those who were elected as a result of casual elections, not even those who were elected on the strength of some constitutional arrangement or other.

Not having planned this stage before, as Muscat did in his time, in the end key aide JeanPierre Debono fell on his sword (maybe pushed by revelations regarding the signing of proxy votes) and the seat was finally Delia’s.

So we now had a defeat of style: a mock but real casual election was held and the winner lasted around three minutes as a fully-fledged MP, oath and all, before he too resigned. The three-minute MP saw nothing strange in this nor did the rest of the House which assisted this charade impassively.

There was still a small but significant defeat along the way. The PN central committee met to decide to offer the now vacant seat for Delia to be coopted. I do not know what the rule book says, but it seems that some asked for a secret ballot. However, the committee, urged on by former minister and European Commissioner Tonio Borg, chose to seal the decision by a show of hands. Delia was thus defeated by the fear of a secret ballot.

When he entered Parliament to take the oath as an MP, he was not surrounded by the entire parliamentary group. According to One News, half the parliamentary group was absent. Another defeat.

And when he was finally crowned as Leader of the Opposition, he was defeated... by time. He arrived between 45 minutes and more than an hour late, and this when the President had just flown in from Rome to be present.

In the meantime he also suffered another defeat, along with his parliamentary group, when he submitted a motion on the delicate and slippery slope of reproduction rights which seem to have been understood by many people as aimed at curtailing acquired rights by lesbians following the recent legislative changes. Of all the subjects on which the new leader’s first parliamentary motion should have been this was surely the last one. Maybe he thought this would please the PN conservative faction but it also antagonised the LGBT crowd and was roundly criticised by Labour.

There was meanwhile yet another defeat: plans for the party’s deputy leaders to be people close to him, and of his choice, fell through because others, not in the Delia stable, announced that they were running too.

But also in the meantime there was at long last a glimmer of hope that not all was lost in his regard. He told Dissett that he plans to pay all his outstanding debts by the end of the year. He did not specify how he will do this, especially now that earlier plans for him to get a salary from the party apart from the State salary for the Leader of the Opposition seem to have fallen through. But one must take him at his word and, of course, seek confirmation at the end of the year.

And on Friday he was on Xarabank and I am told that I need a special article to discuss all that was said.

I remember Joseph Muscat’s “Hobbuha ghax thobbkom” speech when he was chosen, and Eddie Fenech Adami with John Dalli by his side texting away, but the Delia election beats them all.