The first round of voting in the vote of confidence in PN Leader Adrian Delia will take place this evening.
Early voting will take place at the PN HQ between 5pm and 8pm while some 100 PN Gozitan councillors are eligible to vote at the party’s Sannat office, also between 5pm and 8pm.
Most of the party’s 1,200 councillors will vote on Saturday, during an extraordinary session of the party’s general council.
Councillors are being asked whether Adrian Delia should remain as party leader until the next general election.
Last month, a group of people who want Delia to step down in the wake of the EP and local council elections presented a petition calling on the party to hold a general council and a vote of confidence. Supporters of Delia subsequently presented another petition calling for the first petition to be revoked.
Both petitions included a number of invalid signatures, mostly related to unpaid memberships.
This led Delia to himself convene the General Council. During that fiery PN executive committee meeting, it was decided that the process will be overseen by an electoral commission chaired by PN veteran Francis Zammit Dimech. Delia also appointed PN stalwart Louis Galea to oversee a party reform.
The group behind the anti-Delia faction, fronted by former executive committee president Mark Anthony Sammut and former election candidate Ivan Bartolo, had claimed that the list of eligible voters was still being updated when it should have been frozen on the day the general council was convened.
The electoral commission said, however, that the list had indeed been frozen on 4 July and that it was being verified.
On Saturday, Zammit Dimech said the list had been verified but added that councillors who feel that they should be included in the list had until Tuesday to send their submissions in writing.
It is also giving until Wednesday for councillors to pay up their party membership fee.
The general council is expected to kick off at around 9.30am on Saturday, with speeches by representatives of both groups of petitioners. General Council President Kristy Debono is also expected to address the event.
Voting starts at 10am and closes at 6pm, with the counting process starting shortly after.
Party officials said the process should not take more than three hours.