Doctor Abandons PN And Makes It His Mission To Unite Malta’s Small Parties
PN leader Adrian Delia has won a confidence vote and the internal rebellion against him appears to have fizzled out, or at least gone dormant. The Opposition leader’s supporters have warned the rebels that they must ‘get in line or get out’ and it is pretty clear which way the wind is blowing.
However, one man has indeed left the party since last weekend, endocrinologist, longtime PN activist and former candidate Herman Farrugia.
“I have no further time to waste after such arrogant criminal intimidation I have been enduring from the rudiment shadow of the party I have grown in, always nurtured and loved,” he said in a Facebook post last week.
He was referring to supporters of Delia who sent him threatening messages ahead of the vote, actions which prompted him to file a police report.
Farrugia will now make it his mission to unite Malta’s two small parties Partit Demokratiku and Alternattiva Demokratika into a strong political force, a bold task given their unpopularity among the Maltese electorate.
However, he believes they can overcome their odds if they combine their resources and put their differences aside.
“I’m trying to mould a symbiosis between them because I personally think they risk a downfall,” Farrugia told Lovin Malta. “Support for them appears to be constantly dwindling and their enthusiasm might fail, and I want to spend my energy to ensure they can work in unison.”
Adrian Delia's supporters celebrate at the PN headquarters after he wins a confidence vote
“AD is more liberal and PD is more conservative but together they can be a force to be reckoned with. I don’t think I can ever join them because I don’t want to lose my PN tessera but I’m going to try to coordinate their activities and mobilise them, so as to defragment them.”
Farrugia’s disillusionment at the PN and at its lack of policy direction and structure has been growing over the years, and he said he had raised his concerns in private and public but they fell on deaf ears.
And although Delia won the vote by 68%, Farrugia warned the General Council was “manipulated” to vote for the leader, calling out way the party’s grassroots are represented on the Council.
The PN has a sectional committee for each locality and is supposed to appoint one councillor for every 500 registered voters in the locality. Combined, they make up the bulk of the General Council, composed of some 1,500 councillors.
Adrian Delia's supporters mob the PN leader after he wins a confidence vote
However, Farrugia criticised the system on the grounds that these councillors aren’t voted in but are generally appointed by simple nominations by sectional committee top officials, usually the President or Secretary General. These then energetically suggest them to the Sectional Committee for its near automatic rubber-stamp approval.
“They’re not sieved at all and the only requirement is that they have a tessera,” he said. “They don’t necessarily have any knowledge of party structure or policy and are mainly yes-men, because the new presidents and secretary generals appointed in the past 18 months are in favour of the leadership and will promote people with the same views.”
“These representatives are essentially the adopted children of the General Council and, while this has long been the case, their percentage on the Council increased significantly thanks to a decision by [former PN leader] Simon Busuttil. The democratic base of the General Council is therefore very shaky.”
Moreover, Farrugia warned that Delia’s decision to meet all the councillors on a one-to-one basis prior to the confidence was a way of manipulating them to vote for him.
He referred to a speech Delia had given prior to the vote, in which he recounted how a particular councillor had told him he hadn’t been summoned since his school days and that he left the one-on-one meeting with tears in his eyes.
“They were crying because it was the first time they had set foot into his inner sanctum,” Farrugia said. “It’s the systematic machination of the system, the patronisation of the vote. Meeting them one by one isn’t the way to do things; Lawrence Gonzi met people in groups ahead of his confidence vote and he still got 96% of the vote.”
AD's executive, with leader Carmel Cacopardo in the centre
Partit Demokratiku and Alternattiva Demokratika performed poorly at last month’s European Parliament elections, with PD only winning 5,276 first-count votes and AD only winning 1,866. No PD or AD candidate was elected to a local council either, with AD secretary-general Ralph Cassar losing his seat on the Attard local council.
Since the election, AD decided to largely stick with the status quo, including reconfirming Carmel Cacopardo as its leader and Ralph Cassar as its secretary general.
PD has gone in the other direction, with its entire executive, including leader Godfrey Farrugia resigning, and the party embarking on an internal process to ‘reinvent’ the party.
Farrugia confirmed this week that this exercise could also include the rebranding of the party’s name.
READ NEXT: Partit Demokratiku Discusses Name Change As Part Of Strategy To ‘Reinvent’ The Party
