The Nationalist Party's electoral commission that was headed by former EU Commissioner Joe Borg has been dissolved, PN general secretary Clyde Puli said on Indepth yesterday.

Interviewed by The Malta Independent editor-in-chief Rachel Attard, Puli said:  "At the moment, I and a small number of other people, are scouting to find the best candidates."

He added that once the prospective candidates were established, they would go before the party's executive for approval.

Puli said that the PN's electoral commission had been appointed under the leadership of Simon Busuttil, but before that it had always been the party's administration that approached potential candidates and, once they had accepted the offer, they would appear before the party's executive to be confirmed.

Puli confirmed that the party was once again adopting this strategy.

Puli was also asked about the European Parliamentary elections and who would be contesting on the PN ticket. He confirmed that apart from Frank Psaila, Michael Briguglio had also accepted to contest the elections for the PN: "I think Briguglio is a very valid person for the party," Puli said.

He also confirmed that family lawyer Bernard Grech and EU veteran Peter Agius had also been approached by the party.  Puli said that in the coming weeks the party would be announcing the first group of the party's candidates for the MEP elections.

Asked what strategy the party would adopt if Partit Demokratiku MP Marlene Farrugia were to contest the MEP election, Puli said that the relevance the party had today was "minimal." Shifting the argument to whether the party would keep its third seat in the European Parliament, the PN secretary general said that at even though the elections were important, "as matters stands, we need to look at the bigger picture and our vision should be the next general election that will take place at 2022."

He added: "I will doing my utmost to carry out the necessary reforms so that we will be in government."