Adrian Delia has lost a vote of no confidence held by the PN’s Parliamentary Group. Although Delia insisted that he will remain in office, he no longer has the support of the majority of the members of the Opposition. A total of 19 MPs voted against Adrian Delia and 11 in his favour.
This means that he will be removed from the Leader of the Opposition although he remains Leader of the Nationalist Party. In Parliament Delia will no longer be representing the Nationalist MPs.
However, for this to take effect Nationalist MPs now have to inform the President of the Republic of their no confidence vote. If this is not done, nothing will change. This effectively means that Adrian Delia has made history by being the first Leader of the Opposition to be ousted from office by his own MPs.
In his first comments to the press, Delia said that despite respecting the decision of the Parliamentary Group he will continue with his work both as a leader of the Nationalist Party and also of the Opposition. However, despite Delia’s claims, the post of Leader of the Opposition rests on the Parliamentary Group’s decision and not on the party’s members.
He said he was elected for one term and “no one and nothing can stop me”. He argued the PN cannot be credible if it discards the votes of its members. The vote was called late on Tuesday evening in light of a story published in The Sunday Times regarding messages from Yorgen Fenech to Adrian Delia alleging that Fenech and Delia continued to have conversations even after it was revealed that 17 Black belongs to Fenech.