Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia obtained two-thirds approval in a vote taken on Saturday.

Delia has won the vote of confidence in the PN extraordinary general council, with 67.75% of the votes cast.

In total, 1,496 councillors were eligible to vote, and 1,380 cast their vote. That is a 92% voter turnout, according to the president of the Electoral Commission Francis Zammit Dimech.

Of the votes cast, there were 22 invalid votes. 920 councillors voted in favour of Delia remaining, while 438 voted against. This means that Delia won the vote with 67.75% of the vote in favour, and 32.25% of the councillors voted against him.

In a statement, the Nationalist Party said that Delia obtained more than two-thirds of the vote in spite of just needing a simple majority. Delia increased his tally from his election as leader in 2017 by 50%, the party said.

He had obtained 45% of the votes at general council level in the first stage of the election two years ago (when only the councillors voted), and increased them to 52.7% when the convention was held (and the voting was extended to the paid-up members).

It was Delia himself, somewhat belatedly, who called for the vote after the group calling for his removal had presented a petition requesting the party to hold an extraordinary general council after the massive defeat in the latest MEP and local council elections.

Delia was elected to lead the party in September 2017 in what was the first ever party convention, which allowed all party paid-up members to elect the leader following a change of statute pushed by Delia’s predecessor Simon Busuttil.