Former PN leader Simon Busuttil and fellow MPs Jason Azzopardi and Karol Aquilina have evaded this newsroom’s questions about the aftermath of last Saturday’s general council vote for the past two days.

The trio were among the most critical members of the now-confirmed PN leader Adrian Delia during his tenure, but attempts to ask them for their reaction to Saturday’s vote – when Delia was confirmed as party leader with 67.75% of the party councillors’ votes – and on whether they would now back Delia’s leadership were futile, with none of the three responding to questions or to repeated phone calls on Sunday and Monday.

Busuttil is perceived by many as being the leader of a group of Delia’s detractors, to the point that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Sunday that Delia had managed to “beat Simon Busuttil” in last Saturday’s vote. Busuttil himself has not publicly criticised Delia since just over a year ago, when Delia asked the former leader to resign after a magisterial inquiry found no proof to the claim that the Prime Minister or his wife had anything to do with the Panama-based company Egrant.  Back then, Busuttil had accused Delia of siding with Muscat.

Aquilina, similarly, has not criticised Delia in the public sphere since he had asked for Busuttil’s resignation, however former PN media chief and close ally to Delia, Pierre Portelli, said last month that the MP has “so much to answer for” before also criticising him for accompanying blogger Manuel Delia in a court case against Net TV – the PN’s own TV station.

Azzopardi meanwhile has likely been one of his party leader’s most outspoken critics, with the MP frequently resorting to social media to his criticism. Just last month, after the PN’s disastrous results in the MEP and local council elections, when Mark Anthony Sammut resigned from the post of PN Executive President, Azzopardi posted on Facebook saying that while Sammut had resigned in spite of not having any responsibility for the PN’s election campaign, yet whoever planned it and implemented it stayed on.

That comment proved to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back; Adrian Delia later said that he had had enough of Azzopardi’s social media comments and that he has no more time to waste with him.

Attempts by this newsroom to contact all three were futile; Aquilina and Busuttil did not answer questions or phone calls, while Azzopardi told this newsroom on Sunday that he was at a village feast and could not talk, but then did not answer further phone calls later on Sunday and on Monday.

Questions sent last Wednesday to them on what their immediate future plans within the party would be if Delia won his vote of confidence were also never answered.

Busuttil and Azzopardi did briefly answer similar questions from The Times of Malta; although the former told the newspaper that he does not comment publicly about internal party matters and that he remained focused on dealing with Malta’s corrupt government.

Azzopardi meanwhile referred Times of Malta to an opinion piece written by Ranier Fsadni for the Shift News, which states that Delia needed now to face the issues with which he is associated head-on so that he does not remain a major liability with voters. Azzopardi told the newspaper that he “can identify” with Fsadni’s analysis of the situation following the vote.

Beppe Fenech Adami, another prominent name which had been linked with Delia’s detractors, did answer this newsroom’s questions, and warned that using social media to hurt the party would be a mistake and said that the result had now given Delia a mandate to lead the PN into the next general election. He noted however that one must also take into account the third of the party which did not back Delia.