Pyrrhic victory for Delia and Grech’s faux pas: the PN’s weaknesses exposed
Bernard Grech’s election as leader was supposed to bring back normality to the PN. But last week’s déjà vu brought back division outside the party headquarters. Kurt Sansone looks at the impact of this affair on the three protagonists
12 May 2021, 8:00am
by Kurt Sansone
Adrian Delia: A Pyrrhic victory
Adrian Delia faced an acrimonious rebellion last year by MPs who wanted him out. The rebellion eventually led to a fresh leadership contest that Delia lost. There were multiple reasons underpinning the rebellion but two issues pushed the matter over the brink. The first issue was linked to revelations that Delia had exchanged WhatsApp messages with murder suspect Yorgen Fenech when it was known that Fenech owned 17 Black but his involvement in the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination was not yet public knowledge. The second issue was linked to accusations that Delia had conspired with Fenech to u
A U-turn worthy of Dukes of Hazzard .
And that is precisely the sort of daredevil, death-defying stunt, that no one – not even Bo and Luke’s body-doubles – would ever dream of risking their own necks for…
Raphael Vassallo
11 May 2021, 7:37am
After more than two decades of observing Maltese politics in action, it is only now that I realise why such a mediocre spectacle makes for such profoundly compelling viewing.
It reminds me of ‘Dukes of Hazzard’: that incorrigible old TV series which I loved so much as a young teenager. Not, perhaps, for all the reasons that have since made it so ‘controversial’ – the racist undertones, for instance (which flew clean over my head, at the time); or the fact that the Dukes’ car was named ‘General Lee’, and had a Confederate Flag spray-painted onto the roof…
Grech threatened the sack for Delia and Azzopardi in PN discord meeting
Adrian Delia ‘in tears of joy’ and Jason Azzopardi given short shrift by Grech: how the PN’s discord was mismanaged
10 May 2021, 8:06am
by Paul Cocks
A mawkish audio recording from Adrian Delia was sent out to well-wishers on Thursday evening on WhatsApp. In it, the former PN leader sent out a teary ‘thank you’ in a voice broken by emotion: “Thank you to those who kept believing in me, when everything was stacked against me. I can lose 1,000 elections but truth will always out, but I will never lose my integrity.”
Evarist Bartolo: Labour needs an ‘act of contrition’
Malta’s outspoken Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo acknowledges that his party has a lot of soul-searching to do; yet insists that the major reforms undertaken by government cannot be ignored, either
10 May 2021, 7:30am
by Matthew Vella
European Parliament’s resolution
condemning
Malta’s rule-of-law situation. You accused the EP of having been instrumentalized, for partisan ends, by Nationalist MEPs. As Malta’s foreign minister – and therefore directly concerned with issues affecting Malta’s international reputation – don’t
you
think this approach is counter-productive?
No, not at all. When I first became Foreign Affairs Minister, I made a very strong statement, saying that I was entrusted with the duty to improve Malta’s reputation. And I also said that this wasn’t the job of a ‘beautician’. You can’t ’improve Malta’s reputation’ by simply covering up all the mess w