Party vs committees: the PN’s internal division on leadership candidates

As the four candidates vying to succeed Simon Busuttil as leader of the Nationalist Party met for coffee in Valletta at a staged media photo opportunity, there was more than coffee brewing at the party’s headquarters and within local committees.

Lawyer Adrian Delia, MP Chris Said, outgoing party treasurer Alex Perici Calascione and former MP Frank Portelli were pictured talking and joking with each other, seemingly immune to the machinations, strategising and intrigue that the leadership contest has generated behind the scenes.

MaltaToday has learned that a concerted effort is underway to pressure and convince the members of the PN sectional committees – and their representatives on the party’s general council – to vote for either of two of the candidates: Delia and Said.

A number of members of various sectional committees, which group the committees for each district, have confirmed that the Dar Centrali is pushing for Said to replace Busuttil, with some administration officials going as far as to claim that if Delia were to win, everything would change, including the composition of the sectional committees (despite this being outside the remit of party HQ).

But the word from some sectional committees is that the pressure from Pietà is being shrugged off and that many committee members intend to vote for ‘new blood’ at the helm of the PN, following two consecutive election drubbings at the hands of the Labour Party.

The General Council will meet on the first weekend of September to elect two candidates (out of the four nominees), to go forward to face an election by the PN’s paid-up members, totaling some 22,000, on 16 September.

The General Council is composed of: members of the party executive committee, the parliamentary group, local councillors, members appointed by the party on administrative councils, representatives of the sectional committees and the localities, the Gozo regional committee, the voting members of the executive committees of the party’s youth section (MZPN), women’s section (MNPN), Solidarjetà Haddiema PN, pensioners’ section, SME Forum, the Equal Opportunities Forum, the Professionals’ Forum, as well as all the party candidates in the last general election, candidates for the last European Parliament election, all former members of Parliament and MEPs and all former party officials.

But the representatives of all the localities, including the sectional committees, make up the largest bloc of voters by far. 

Each locality appoints a representative for every 500 eligible voters in the locality: in the last General Council, there were 1,399 party members representing the localities.

And this is where most of the internal politicking is focused on.

Much like the College of Voters in the US presidential election, the localities have different numbers of representatives, according to the voting population. This makes for an un-level playing field, with some larger localities yielding much greater voting power than smaller towns and villages.

In the last Council, Birkirkara had the highest number of voting representatives, 69, followed by Mosta with 59, Qormi (56), Zabbar (52), Sliema (46), St Paul’s Bay (46) and Naxxar (42).

For the candidates, this means that if they can manage to win over most of the committees in the larger localities – and therefore their votes in the council – this could go a long way towards garnering enough votes to make it into the final two.

For an outsider like Delia, the vote of the localities’ representatives could be crucial, especially if the party machine is really pushing for Said.

Sources have confirmed that already the scene is set in many of the larger localities.

Birkirkara is Delia’s home-town, he being the popular president of Birkirkara FC as well. 

One member of the sectional committee told MaltaToday that since the representatives for the Council are chosen directly by the committee, not through an election or selection, they are making sure to select people they know will vote Delia on the day.

Mosta, Qormi, Naxxar and Sliema also seem to have already hedged their bets on Delia, besides other smaller localities like Marsaskala, Hamrun and Fgura.

Said, on the other hand, seems to have the backing of the St Paul’s Bay, Mellieha, Rabat and Siggiewi representatives, as well as a number of localities in the south and south-east.

The 107 representatives of Gozo at the moment still seem to be equally split between the two, despite Gozo being Said’s home district. MaltaToday has learned that many of “Giovanna Debono’s people” are pushing for the representatives to vote for Delia, but Said’s strong support on the sister island appears to be putting up a good resistance.