It's official: Adrian Delia announces bid to reclaim PN leadership

Updated 4.15pm with Alex Borg comment

Adrian Delia has officially announced his candidacy for the Nationalist Party leadership, five years after he resigned from the position. 

"I have chosen once more to place the interests of the PN and country first," Delia wrote on Facebook. "With the support of my family, friends, kunsilliera, tesserati and parliamentary colleagues, I am officially putting my name forward to serve as leader of our great party once again."

Delia said that he was "inspired" by the encouragement he received in the past weeks and was confident that the party could "turn a page and begin a new chapter" - the same language outgoing leader Bernard Grech used when announcing his decision to step down.  

Delia, a lawyer by profession who entered politics in 2017, is the first candidate to declare a bid for the PN leadership. If he is successfully reelected as party leader, it would be unprecedented in PN history. 

Delia served as party leader between 2017 and 2020 before a rebellion within his parliamentary group saw him lose the job to Bernard Grech. Delia had presided over three tumultuous years that came to a head when 17 of the party's MPs openly called for his removal and tried, unsuccessfully, to have him removed as Opposition leader.

However, in the last years, he managed to make inroads into the party by pledging loyalty to his successor and earning support largely due to his pivotal role in the Vitals case, where he led a long legal battle to expose corruption tied to the controversial hospitals deal. 

Delia's announcement comes after MP Alex Borg and Delia met to discuss the leadership and privately agreed not to contest each other, and instead to back one another, a PN source told Times of Malta.

A survey among PN members leaked to Times of Malta showed Borg, a Gozitan MP, as the most popular choice to become leader, with Delia in second place. A survey carried out by Malta Today showed similar trends.

Borg stops short of endorsing Delia

Borg stopped short of explicitly endorsing Delia on Monday. 

"I will back any leader," Borg said. "It's nice to see a former leader contest. Now we need to see if others run [too]."

Borg said he would be issuing a formal statement about his intentions later on Monday. 

Fellow MP David Agius said it was still early days, as nominations for candidates would be accepted until Sunday. 

"I was deputy leader under Delia, so everyone knows where I stand," he said when pressed on whether he backed Delia's candidacy.  

Grech announced his resignation earlier in June, paving the way for a new PN leader. This will be the fourth leader since 2013, when the party lost the general election.

Adrian Delia outside court with outgoing leader Bernard Grech.

A vast majority of party members, MPs and officials were initially hoping Roberta Metsola would return to Malta and take over the Nationalist Party after Bernard Grech’s surprise decision to step down.

But Metsola shut down such ideas when she announced that she would complete her term in the EU and would not contest the leadership.