Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1146457
NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 JULY 2019 MATTHEW VELLA THE Nationalist Party's preparation for a General Council that will host a confi- dence vote in its leader Adri- an Delia has been riven by ac- cusations of inaccurate voter records and even a physical threat. MaltaToday is informed that the PN's electoral com- mission, chaired by former MEP Francis Zammit Di- mech, has not yet forwarded a complaint to the police about the aggressive accosting of one of its members outside its house by a PN councillor. The councillor, whom yes- terday MaltaToday was un- able to contact, was outside the Naxxar residence of the electoral commission mem- ber Angelito Sciberras, wait- ing for him to return from a meeting of the electoral com- mission on the night of 18 July, at around 11pm. The councillor, a one-time canvasser of former minister Austin Gatt, was also said to have made an angry phone- call to Zammit Dimech right before his confrontation with Sciberras. Sciberras is a PN employee with its Elcom electoral of- fice. Together with another Elcom official, he forms part of the five-men electoral commission that will organ- ise next week's confidence vote. The other two members are a representative of Adrian Delia, and a member repre- senting councillors who re- quested the confidence vote. According to the report filed with the PN's electoral commission, Sciberras was approached by the delegate, who demanded that he sup- ply Mark Anthony Sammut – the former PN executive president who has called for the confidence vote on De- lia – with a list of the eligi- ble General Council voters. Sciberras, who was still in his car at the moment of con- frontation, drove off, but not before his accuser attempted to block his passage with his own car. MaltaToday was told that this delegate has only recent- ly been elected to the General Council as a representative of the Swieqi committee of the PN, despite not having an ad- dress there. Yesterday, Mark Anthony Sammut protested the fact that he had not yet been granted access to a delegates' list ahead of the confidence motion. The General Council groups the PN's national del- egates from across the island, and is the highest decision- making body except for the General Congress, which can elect party leaders and deputy leaders through the suffrage of all paid-up party members. "The list we have received so far has a number of localities missing and is not a complete list," Sammut said. "It also lacks identity card numbers of voters. It is apparent that the list is an old one which is not updated to the electoral register, where people who changed their address have been for years registered on their old addresses. It is clear this is a deliberate ploy to make it impossible for us to communicate with council- lors." Sammut, however, said that he surmised that some 500 councillors have changed from a total of 1,530 since Delia won the popular vote in 2017. "This means that nothing less than 33% of eli- gible voters have since then changed, which means they can have a substantial impact on the voting result." Francis Zammit Dimech, however, reacted by saying that the full list of eligible voters had been verified by the commission. Zammit Dimech said that the list of eligible councillors was valid as of 4 July, when the General Council was called, but insisted that his commission had no right to contest the choice of coun- cillors made by the sectional committees. Councillors who feel they had been wrongly left off the list have until Tuesday at noon to contact the electoral commission. Man arrested after remains of woman missing since 2008 are found POLICE have revealed that they have found what they believe are the remains of a young woman who went missing in 2008. Her identity was not revealed by the police, although MaltaToday is in- formed it could be Charlene Farrugia of Qawra. She was last seen driving a grey Toyota Platz in Valletta on 6 Novem- ber, 2008. She was aged 25. Forensics have yet to identify the body. Investigations by the Sliema police and the CID yielded the remains of a body found in the Valletta area. Police said its investigations had resulted in the arrest of a man suspected of carry- ing out the homicide. Yet according to media reports, the man in question had been recently ar- rested in an attempted hold-up at a Convenience Store outlet in Gzira. Elcom member accosted by angry PN canvasser at night ahead of divisive vote Charlene Farrugia (left) and the arrested man