‘You Are Harming PN, Bow Out Now’; Adrian Delia Backlash Grows Ahead Of Debate
Internal pressure is growing on Adrian Delia to bow out of the PN leadership race, after the party made the stunning move last night of urging him to step down in the wake of reports he had laundered money from a Soho prostitution ring.
Delia, a lawyer, railed against the PN administrative council’s decision as the dirty work of an “establishment” hell-bent on tarnishing his name before the first round of the election on Saturday.
However, people close to the PN are now publicly calling on Delia to follow the PN’s advice and step out of the leadership race.
Former PN MP Philip Mifsud led the charge, warning his defiance is “causing irreparable damage” to both himself and the PN.
“Your decision last night has weakened the PN further, with the unavoidable ripple effect on the strength of democracy in our country,” he said on Facebook. “My gut feeling is that you are aware of all this, nonetheless you are persisting in your route. This adds insult to injury.”
Michael Asciak, also a former PN MP, said the allegations raised against Delia are serious enough to merit his dismissal from office if he were elected Opposition leader.
Current PN MP Jason Azzopardi, who has endorsed Chris Said for leader, has shared several posts on his Facebook post by people critical of Delia, including one by journalist James Debono mocking his “anti-establishment” statement.
Sociologist Michael Briguglio, a key feature of the PN’s ‘Forza Nazzjonali’ in the last election campaign, said he would have withdrawn from the race if he were in Delia’s position, arguing “freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin”.
Former Partit Demokratiku leader Marlene Farrugia, who spoke at several PN mass meetings in the last campaign, said the true establishment are high officials within the Labour government, who “want to place a puppet as Opposition leader”
This is PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adams, sharing Simon Busuttil’s call on Delia to withdraw his leadership bid.
This is the PN’s former secretary general Paul Borg Olivier taking a dig at Delia’s ‘New Way’ campaign slogan.
And this is former Radio 101 host David Thake casting doubt on Delia’s true intentions for running for the leadership position.
Former PN candidate Manuel Delia, whose blog has become a popular read for Nationalist supporters, described the situation as a “trainwreck in slow motion”.
“If he really thinks the PN “establishment” is capable of conjuring imaginary accusations, fraudulently manufacture evidence, even lay a 20 year-long trap for him in 1993 in order to scupper his election campaign in 2017, why is he seeking to even be a member of this party, let alone lead it?” he wrote.
Delia and the three other leadership candidates – Chris Said, Alex Perici Calascione and Frank Portelli – will clash heads in the second leaders’ debate tonight at 9pm on Net TV.