Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/875714
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2017 5 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Sources privy to a brief meeting held be- tween Delia and Said this week, said party whip David Agius was mooted for the post of deputy leader for parliamentary affairs. This only complicated efforts to extend an olive branch to Said, who garnered 48% of the vote during last week's election, just 800 votes short of Delia's vote. Past leadership elections have always seen losing candidates co-opted to the party's deputy leadership: Guido de Marco in 1977 and Mario de Marco in 2013 had lost to the winning candidate by far wider margins, and later assumed deputy lead- er roles. But Delia's supporters are now finding the doors closed to the new leader's co-option into the House, which can only be se- cured with the resignation of an MP. Delia's backers are hoping they can soften intra-parliamentary resistance to his election, which he secured with 52% of some 15,000 party members who voted last week. Simon Busuttil is constitu- tionally still Opposition leader, and Delia is hoping he can take up a seat in the House in time for the opening of the new par- liamentary legislature on 1 Oc- tober, and the Budget speech scheduled for the week after. Indeed, a meeting held yes- terday at the Qormi office of Nationalist MP Clyde Puli, led to a fruitless conclusion in a bid to have Ivan Bartolo resign his seat in the House. The former Mosta mayor was elected to the House through a casual election, which means his resignation would not trig- ger another casual election, and therefore pave the way for De- lia's co-option. Puli as well as Pierre Portelli, an advisor to Delia and the Malta Independent's director of content, reportedly offered Ivan Bartolo a paid post as consult- ant to Delia, and party backing for Bartolo to re-assume his position as mayor of Mosta – in itself a labyrinthine process of party horse-trading. Bartolo yesterday refused to disclose details of the meeting but told MaltaToday that, as de- clared in the past, he would not be resigning his seat. Party sources told MaltaToday that other MPs elected in the casual elections, such as David Stellini and Karol Aquilina, the latter a public backer of Said, were resolute not to resign. Maria Deguara, the former Naxxar mayor, was also report- ed to have refused to resign af- ter holding a two-hour meeting on the matter on Monday. That leaves Godfrey Farrugia, also elected by casual election, but whose seat is claimed by the Democratic Party, after being elected as part of the 'Forza Naz- zjonali' coalition on the PN tick- et. It remains to be seen whether PD leader and MP Marlene Far- rugia would be ready to give up her party's second seat. Delia's other options to assume his seat in the House would be the resignation of any other MP directly elected to the House. But that would automatically trigger a casual election. At that point, Delia would have to convince all Nationalist can- didates on the resigning MP's district not to contest the casual election. But even then, Delia would still have to contend with those candidates fielded by the PD on the Nationalist ticket, and convince his coalition part- ner not to run for the casual election. That could easily in- vite negotiations with Marlene Farrugia, who has derided the choice of Delia by PN voters as an attempt of turning the PN into a copy of the Labour Party. Another option for Delia could be to seek the resignation of an MP, and then agreement from any of the candidates elected in the subsequent casual election, to resign and make way for his co-option. But while Gozitan MP Freder- ick Azzopardi has been report- ed to be amenable to resigning his seat, party sources speak- ing to MaltaToday insist that candidates on the 13th district are also unwilling to forgo their candidature on that casual election. News Bartolo, Deguara refused to resign Ivan Bartolo was asked to resign his seat in Parliament THE roof of a block of Sliema apartments on Pace Street caved in yesterday afternoon after bricks were dislodged from an overhead crane. A spokesperson for the Police confirmed that nobody was in- jured in the incident, which hap- pened at 3pm. Witnesses said an ambulance had been called. A woman, 51, was lying down in her bedroom listening to the radio when part of the ceiling collapsed under the weight of the bricks. Luckily, she was not hit by the bricks that landed right next to her. Her husband, George Bruno, told MaltaToday that he was in the kitchen when he heard a loud noise and rushed into the bed- room where his wife was resting. The couple live on the third f loor of the 80-year-old building. "The stones came down onto the bed just a few inches away from my wife," Bruno said, shak- ing his head as the woman stood outside on the landing whilst workers cleared the debris. Bruno said that the house next door had been bought by a contractor who tore it down to build a seven-storey block of apartments. The block is cur- rently four storeys. A concrete block fell a height of one storey onto Bruno's roof. The membrane held the brick up but knocked the bricks in the ceiling into the bedroom. Bruno's architect, Mario Pirotta, insisted that the in- cident was the result of "care- lessness". "This is unacceptable and there needs to be better health and safety measures," he ar- gued. Sliema roof caves in after crane drops bricks, no injuries reported The membrane held the brick up but knocked the bricks in the ceiling into the bedroom