The PN's executive committee met Tuesday evening, mainly to discuss the upcoming general council and in particular the question surrounding the vote of confidence in Leader Adrian Delia.
Delia, exiting the meeting, said that the committee unanimously agreed to put the question he invoked through article 30c of the party's statute forward to the general council. The question will be: "Should the leader of the Party, Adrian Delia, remain leading the PN until the next election?"
A petition had been filed calling for a vote of confidence in PN Leader Adrian Delia to take place at the general council.
The anti-Delia petitioners had originally called on the 1,500 general council members to vote on whether Delia should shoulder political responsibility for the recent two major electoral losses in the European Parliamentary and local council elections. A yes vote would have resulted in calling for Delia to shoulder responsibility, however reports read that the pro-Delia faction wanted to get the question changed, for a yes vote to endorse Delia. This situation ended up taking place, as per Delia's statement
Reports prior to the meeting had also read that this petition could have been deemed to be invalid. On this petition, the PN previously said that 84 signatures were either invalid or were signed by people with expired memberships. In a statement on Tuesday night however, the party said that it recognised the validity of 'both petitions submitted in the past days.' This is assumed to mean both the aforementioned petition, as well as the pro-Delia petition that had also been filed which urged the general council to reject the call made in the aforementioned petition, and also called on the party to launch a reform to turn the party into a winning one again.
Sources within the Executive Committee meeting speaking with this newsroom said that PN Executive Committee President Alex Perici Calascione said during the meeting that he will resign from his position if the Executive does not adhere to the statute, and if the General Council does not debate and vote on all the petitions. Delia during the meeting, in response, said that if he calls the general council meeting then he sets the question and says who needs to be removed, sources said.
The PN general council is set to meet on 27 July to discuss the way forward following the 25 May election results.
Video by Michael Camilleri