‘Opportunist, megalomaniac’ Adrian Delia irks former MP Franco Debono

Birkirkara football club’s president Adrian Delia set out for a great start on his campaign to become PN leader.

Standing outside the locked doors of the Nationalist Party headquarters, he vowed to fling them wide open to the thousands who had deserted the party. Then came a cheeky question from Labour’s One News: would he also welcome back former Nationalist MP Franco Debono, the man whose vote effectively brought the Gonzi administration down (just two months ahead of a scheduled election in 2013)?

To that, Delia said that Debono has no place inside the PN, a categorical refusal that was met with a barrage from Debono on his Facebook wall.

“Opportunist, megalomaniac, a hunger for power… for Delia politics is just an adventure and an exercise in personal ambition,” Debono, today the Commissioner for Laws, and also a criminal defence lawyer, said on his Facebook wall about the litigation lawyer.

“He is the result of the acute desperation and confusion inside a party that has endured great losses, which in normal circumstances would not take seriously a person without a modicum of political experience, but indeed mock him,” Debono continued.

The former MP, always keen to have his say inside the political battlefield, recently had a survey commissioned to somewhat validate his claims that his internal rebellion against the Gonzi ‘oligarchy’ had been a justified battle.

“Delia does not understand politics and his comments about me have no value. He has a bad track record everywhere he’s been and if he becomes PN leader, the party will simply not win an election win an election…

“I don’t need Delia for my ideas to be listened to,” Debono, who retains a government post on justice reform with the Labour administration, said. “I have no doubt that Delia will be the PN’s death knell… I challenge him to a public debate, wherever he wants.”

Debono might find more joy from Delia’s wife and legal mind, Nickie Vella de Fremeaux, who in a Facebook post back on 5 June actually said that she was of the opinion that the PN should take back the former MP. “I think Debono has a valid ideas and is an asset to the PN.”