There have been around 600 new Nationalist Party paid-up members (tesserati) since Adrian Delia’s election to PN Leader, while 25 to 30 paid-up members have left, The Malta Independent has been informed.

Sources from the PN informed the newsroom of the latest influx of members after it was provided latest figures from the party’s electoral commission from the latest leadership election, which revealed that there were 22,000 active paid-up members prior to 16 September, the highest figure since 2010 when it held 19,318 active paid-up members.

There were only 19,350 eligible voters in the last leadership election, as the party statute only allowed paid-up members who had been so two or more years prior to the election or inactive members who would pay outstanding membership fees.

On 30 September, PN general election candidate Kevin Cassar, who is the spouse of President Emeritus and former PN Leader Eddie Fenech Adami’s niece, resigned from the party saying that he was concerned at the direction the PN was taking, and had serious doubts about Delia.

The figures indicate that the last couple of years of former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s stewardship saw a significant exodus from the party’s membership dropping to 16,838 in 2011, finally reaching its lowest point since 2010 with 15,739 active paid-up members in 2013, the same year as Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s first resounding electoral victory.

The lowest point came in 2013, the year of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s first resounding electoral victory, when the PN had 15,739 active members.

Simon Busuttil’s tenure as party leader did see a change around in fortunes. It  saw a slight increase in 2014 and 2015 with 16,276 paid-up members and 16,436 paid-up members respectively.

It was only until 2016, the same year as the Panama Paper’s revelations, that the party’s membership shot up to 19, 195 paid-up members.

Currently there are 8,643 inactive members, which includes individuals who have not paid their membership but have not formally left the party, bringing the party total up to 30,665.

This is a significant decrease from the high of 12,469 members in 2014.

The newsroom was told that this figure involves individuals who had stopped paying their membership fee prior to this year, but was not given figures for those who failed to pay in 2017.

The Labour Party was also asked for their membership figures but did not reply or acknowledge to questions sent.