Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1468621
6 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 25 MAY 2022 Grech's tiritombla: 70, 80, or more than 90… Bernard Grech is seeking a strong mandate from party councillors in a one man race due this week, but it remains unclear what result will make him happy. James Debono asks what would constitute a strong mandate "I'M contesting this election again, and I'm asking for a strong mandate so that you can help me take hard and courageous deci- sions together," Bernard Grech said in an interview on party TV on Sunday. Grech initially failed to quan- tify what a 'strong mandate' is in comments to MaltaToday. "Councillors are called upon to realise the party is theirs as well, and that they need to give the leader, who is the on- ly person participating in the election, a strong mandate, so that I can take the needed deci- sions," he told this newspaper. Later, in comments to Times of Malta, Grech was more forthcoming albeit guarded in his reply. "Securing the support of less than 70% of party coun- cillors would be a disappoint- ing result," Grech said but was reluctant to put a vote target. Grech is the sole contender in the leadership race, and will only need a simple majority among party councillors to be confirmed as the party's lead- er. But while it is nearly certain that Grech will be confirmed as leader his standing in the par- ty depends on the scale of his victory. For in the absence of a contest, the vote will be essen- tially a vote of confidence in Grech. 67%, 95% or something in be- tween? There are two recent prec- edents against which Grech's performance can be measured although both reflected differ- ent circumstances. Facing internal threats to his one seat majority in parliament Lawrence Gonzi had asked councillors to confirm him as leader in 2012. Gonzi had been first elected to lead the PN in 2004 with 808 votes from 859 votes cast in the second round of the leadership election (94%) after rival John Dalli withdrew and Louis Galea was eliminated. In 2012 despite a rift with a number of backbench rebels including Franco Debono and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, he still retained the same level of support securing 851 votes out of 899 eligible voters (95%). Unlike Grech now, Gonzi was not obliged by party statute to hold the vote and the vote was seen as an attempt to reunify the party behind the leader. It was a different story with a second confidence vote which Adrian Delia had won in July 2019 by just over two thirds of councillors (67%). On that occasion councillors had been asked on the ballot sheet "Do you want Adrian Delia to lead the PN until the next general election?" 920 councillors vot- ed in favour of Delia, with 438 against and 22 invalidating the vote. The vote came in the wake of infighting after the party re- ceived a thrashing in local and MEP elections in 2019. Party rebels had embarked on a tor- turous path of dethroning De- lia through party structures by collecting 150 signatures from members of the general council to call an extraordinary meet- ing. But in so doing they failed to propose an alternative lead- er as they did a year later. Delia reacted by conven- ing the council and securing a strong vote for him to stay. Yet the vote still confirmed that a third of councillors were against him, and in September 2020 Bernard Grech who gar- nered the support of 69% of party members (tesserati) re- placed Delia. It is highly unlikely for Grech to secure the same level of sup- port for Gonzi in 2012. For while Gonzi faced the verdict of councillors as the country's Prime Minister for eight years in a bid to silence a few dissent- ing MPs, Grech is facing coun- cillors as a defeated Opposition leader who was only elected leader less than two years ago. The spectre of Delia's pyrrhic victory Grech clearly needs a higher level of support then the two- thirds majority enjoyed by Delia in 2019. For this level of support was clearly not enough to heal divisions in the party, which came to a head in a lead- ership contest, a year later. Moreover, like Delia before him, Grech may find himself NEWS NEWS