In a statement, Ivan Bartolo, Emma Portelli Bonnici, Mark Anthony Sammut, Emvin Bartolo and Martin Musumeci have welcomed the fact that the Nationalist Party's General Council will be convened for the first time in history on the request of 150 of the party's members, the minimum threshold to call for such a gathering.

The five signatories of the statement observed how the Council will be held "in light of the worst results obtained by the PN since Independence", being May's local council and European parliamentary elections.

The signatories remarked that "thanks to this initiative, things will finally start moving, the status quo is being disrupted and the party "will be able to start making the necessary changes".

They added that, contrary to media reports, there were no invalid signatures in the letter presented to the President of the General Council calling for the convening of the party's General Council as per the party's statute.

"It turns out that among the people who made the request, there were 23 members of the General Council who had been stripped of their rights to vote without even having been informed."

Now that the Council will be convened, the signatories said they did not feel the need to go into the question of how and who is responsible for General Council members' list.

"However," they said, "each of these 23 members of the General Council will be checking with their Divisional Committees about exactly when and how they had been struck from the list and denied their right to vote.

As for the nonpaid-up party members referred to by the party, the statement's signatories said it was safe to say that these same people have until the end year to pay up, and some of them had not even been contacted to renew their memberships.

"Therefore, there is no valid reason behind the arbitrary decision of an officer and/or employee of the party for these people to be excluded from being members of the General Council or disenfranchised of the right to vote.

"This," they said, "can be confirmed by the President of the General Council herself."

They added, "Despite all this, a large number of these people have already contacted us and gave us a receipt showing that in reality they were already paid their card for the year 2019.

"This further confirms how the data and the party lists are being kept in a disorganised state, giving rise abuse, something that notwithstanding anything stated in recent weeks has not been addressed.

"We are disappointed that a legitimate request made under the statute of the party for a General Council to be held ends used by top party officials to try to discredit the party roots, who have long years of service to the Party.

"We expect only that the Executive Committee meets urgently to establish the date for the General Council, where a free discussion will be held and where a secret ballot will be held  [on the leadership] as required by the party's statute."