Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1124848
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 JUNE 2019 NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 And only just: 42 votes in favour, to 40 against, a divide redolent of the PN split that has inhabited the party since Delia's election. For a PN that has suffered losses in Gozo, once a blue heartland, the decision not to replace a Gozitan MP with a Gozitan will have some effect on the sister island – a tab De- lia will have to pick up later. Chris Said, the former Na- tionalist minister, made sure his umbrage at the decision was clear: on Facebook, where PN supporters from Gozo were reacting angrily to a Net News item announcing that Debono had been selected, he said: "Gozitans are rightfully disgusted at what happened. I am considering my next move." In the meantime, the main criticism Delia had to face came from MP Claudio Grech, still considered a papabile for the leadership for the muti- nous faction of MPs. "This result is very bad… but it is useless to discuss anything without some form of direc- tion. You have to present us with at least three proposals on the way forward. And then we have to analyse the propos- als. We only take a decision if we have carried out an analy- sis," Grech, a business consult- ant, said. "How can we even come here to discuss the names for the co-option, when the fact is that we have a dysfunctional parlia- mentary group?" Grech asked. "We know what the problems are – and they've been with us ever since Eddie Fenech Ada- mi stepped down – and yet we don't have the solutions." Little, however, happened in the form of debate on Grech's intervention. One MP, who spoke to Mal- taToday on condition of ano- nymity, at one point said the shouting emanating from one group of feuding MPs was so loud, nobody could under- stand anything. "There was a feud between Robert Arrigo and Kristy Debono, and Rob- erta Metsola – they were at each other's throats, hurtling accusations at each other. They were shouting so much, we couldn't even understand what they were arguing about." Delia's men – secretary-gen- eral Clyde Puli and media chief Pierre Portelli – appealed for a more level-headed approach, mindful that Delia's departure carried with it a lot of casual- ties. "If we stand divided, we fall," Puli implored. And Portelli, perhaps una- ware of the understatement of his observation, said: "It is important that we don't just blame one person, but that everyone carries their respon- sibility." Delia reacted angrily to claims by Beppe Fenech Ada- mi, another of his detractors, to a conspiratorial accusation that Stellini's resignation had been "timed" so as to make the last-minute nomination of Cutajar hard to succeed. Delia defended himself, with Stellini intervening to insist his resig- nation was in good faith. A request for an experts' analysis into the PN's elec- toral loss was also not taken up: the people suggested for the analysis were the crimi- nal defence lawyer Joe Giglio, public health expert Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, sociolo- gist Mario Vassallo, and pub- lic policy expert George Vital Azzopardi. MP Mario Galea apparently was vocal in his disagreement. With Mark Anthony Sam- mut then announcing his resignation, both Delia and Clyde Puli asked the Gudja local councillor to reconsider and called for a confidence vote. Sammut replied that his mind had been made, giving the press a lengthy press con- ference afterwards. The MPs left Pietà with lit- tle to say. Only Delia – who, unlike his predecessor, always seems to have time for the press – took journalists' ques- tions, one by one. "Everyone is at liberty to make their own interpreta- tion," he said when faced with the fact that his the PN ex- ecutive was divided down the middle on the co-option of his own ally. "These meetings are always characterised by people dis- cussing freely. There was a strong argumentation made on the representation of Gozo in the parliamentary group, and equally on the lack of representation of the seventh district. That discussion took place, and the matter was de- cided by a secret ballot. That is the beauty of democracy." Still Delia refused to see the glass as half-empty. "I am hap- py today that we have a par- liamentary group in place and ready to start proceedings as the House opens on Monday." As he said earlier in the day, when he ruled out calling for an internal confidence vote, Delia refused to admit that the PN's results in the local and European elections meant he had to go. "This election was PN executive split over co-option Jean-Pierre Debono won the PN's executive committee vote by 42 votes to 40, revealing the split that exists inside the Nationalist Party. His co-option to the House gives Delia another ally inside his parliamentary group Not happy: MPs Chris Said and Jason Azzopardi make their feelings clear on Facebook... Said protests the choice of Debono as MP instead of Gozitan councillor Kevin Cutajar to replace Gozitan MP David Stellini, while Azzopardi, a Delia critic, comments wryly about the fact that it is Mark Anthony Sammut and not the Delia leadership, who is assuming political responsibility for the disastrous election results