PN MP Jason Azzopardi did not provide an answer yesterday when asked whether he has faith in his party’s leader Adrian Delia, saying that such questions are not one which he should reply to, but that he would speak in the “correct fora”, where it is “proper” for him to do so.

Azzopardi was asked for his views after Delia on Saturday said he (Delia) had no more time to waste on the Paola MP’s social media outbursts, the latest coming on Saturday soon after the end of an executive committee meeting.

Sources told The Malta Independent that all those who attended the meeting on Saturday, including Azzopardi, were told to stop using the social media to cause harm to the party, but barely an hour had passed before outspoken MP took to Facebook to throw the first stone.

In his post Azzopardi pointed out that while Mark Anthony Sammut had resigned the presidency of the committee, others who planned and implemented the electoral campaign strategy remained in their place.

Contacted yesterday, Azzopardi said that he was not aware as to whether there was any directive issued for party matters not to be discussed on social media; “so far as far as I know we have freedom of expression; I am not sure if there was something in this sense that goes against it – I am not aware”, he said.

The MP was later on Saturday lambasted by party leader Adrian Delia who, in comments to the media outside the PN’s HQ, said that he had had enough of Azzopardi’s social media outbursts and has no more time for him.

Speaking again yesterday, Delia said: “If we stay attacking each other on social media or in the papers, we are not going to move forward.”

Asked whether, given this statement, he had faith in Delia as party leader, Azzopardi did not answer, saying that such questions are not one which he should reply to, but that he would speak in the “correct fora”.

Asked whether he has any direct reaction to Delia’s statement, Azzopardi said that he had none.  “I have no reaction – absolutely no comment”, he told this newsroom.

What is annoying, the sources told The Malta Independent, is that while Azzopardi did speak during the meeting, he remained silent on the co-option issue all throughout the three-hour discussion that led to a vote on who, between Kevin Cutajar and Jean Pierre Debono, was to replace David Stellini, who resigned his parliamentary seat.

“He (Azzopardi) could have aired his views at the meeting, and his opinion would have been respected like anyone else’s,” the sources said. “But staying silent and then attacking the party on the social media after the meeting was not welcome at all.”

Azzopardi told this newsroom that he had made two interventions during the meeting.  Asked about the nature of these interventions, Azzopardi did not elaborate, saying that they were executive matters.

The sources pointed out that Azzopardi stands to benefit from Sammut’s resignation for another reason, other than it being a blow to Delia’s leadership. Sammut contests the same electoral district in which Azzopardi is a candidate, and is a growing threat to Azzopardi’s place in Parliament.

Azzopardi, a veteran MP, was the only PN candidate to be elected from the fourth district in 2017, obtaining just over 1,000 more first count preferences than Sammut, seen as a valid, young, rising politician. In fact, Sammut saw his personal score in the election nearly treble from the 2013 election, while Azzopardi lost more than 300 first count votes between 2013 and 2017.

In another post on Facebook besides the one related to Sammut on Saturday, Azzopardi re-posted a comment made by Gozitan MP Chris Said who said that Gozitans were upset by result of the vote, with the PN executive choosing to co-opt Debono from the seventh district at the expense of Gozitan candidate Cutajar.

In his post, Said, who did not attend Saturday’s meeting, said he was considering the next step to take following the executive committee’s decision.

During the meeting, there were several moments of heated debate and at one point Delia told former deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami to stop spinning conspiracy theories which were not doing the party any good, One News reports.

The meeting, the sources said, was attended by more than 90 people, although not all the attendees had the right to vote. Usually, executive committee meetings attract fewer than 40 members. “Some of those who made it to the meeting had probably missed many of the committee’s previous meetings,” the sources said.