Nationalist MP Therese Comodini Cachia has urged Adrian Delia to resign as PN leader, warning that he has failed to generate leadership, credibility and respect and that his refusal to step down has placed Maltese democracy under threat.

“None of us says this with a smile on our face, we make this call out of a need to restore our party and the country’s democracy”, Comodini Cachia said in an email to Delia which was copied to the rest of the party’s MPs and shown to Times of Malta.

She wrote this letter after Delia told the press last night, following a parliamentary group meeting, that he intends to lead the PN into the next general election.

“How can you take yourself and all of us for a ride, but above all how dare you fail to understand that you cannot fulfil your role as leader of the Opposition and leader of this party anymore?” she wrote, accusing Delia of ignoring the advice of his MPs and of living in a “fake parallel reality that isn’t supported by facts”.

Comodini Cachia said the resignation of Delia and the rest of the PN leadership should be part of a structured process to rebuild the party, which is facing historically low ratings.

“Your departure, and by ‘your’ I mean the ‘leadership’, cannot be an abdication. It must mean a beginning of a chapter and consequently a plan agreed by all needs to be shaped and implemented. Yesterday, I understood our message to be that since we have now united after a cause we want a leadership that can lead us to execute our work with credibility and respect.”

“This leadership unfortunately is not capable of doing that, even if each and every one of you is very capable of doing other things and of taking on other roles. I ask you therefore to reconsider the hastened decision you informed the media of yesterday.”

Comodini Cachia is the second PN MP to publicly call for Delia’s resignation, after Jason Azzopardi said he felt used and his good faith abused after hearing Delia’s statement to the press.