Adrian Delia’s lawyer Arthur Azzopardi has been stopped from voting in the Nationalist Party leadership election after he admitted to having been a freemason between 2009 and 2011, but other former freemasons have declared that they will still be voting in Saturday’s election.

In a statement this afternoon, the PN referred to a story on Lovinmalta in which Azzopardi admitted to having been a freemason, saying that the party statute prohibited anyone who is a freemason from being a PN member. Following the news story, caretaker secretary general Rosette Thake informed the chairman of the PN’s electoral commission that Azzopardi’s membership has been withdrawn and is therefore ineligible to vote.

Azzopardi is representing Delia in five libel cases he instituted against Daphne Caruana Galizia over claims she made on her blog.

The withdrawal of Azzopardi’s membership and ineligibility to vote is in contrast to the inaction the PN took in other similar instances with regard to freemasons.

Newsbook reported last week that two former freemasons that were photographed near Delia during one of his campaign activities had voted in the first phase of the election on 2 September.

Asked today about his views on freemasonry, Delia said: "Anything that is secretive in nature does not respect the values of a modern and transparent society, I have not ever had any associations with any secretive societies or masonry or lodge. I invite Karol Aquilina to come forward and take responsibility of the statements he made.”