Former Nationalist Party executive committee president Alex Perici Calascione said he is "very seriously considering" running for the post of deputy leader. 

In comments to Times of Malta on Friday, Perici Calascione said that in the past week there has been "a continuing increase of persons from all areas of opinion" within the party reaching out to him. 

"There is a lot of reasoning that it would be good to have the role filled with someone with experience in party structures, where I served as treasurer and as executive president in both cases in very challenging times. Not being an MP can possibly also give the extra advantage of added focus," he said.

Perici Calascione failed to get elected in the March general election and had run for party leader in 2017.

There were still no nominations submitted to the party on Friday afternoon, though MP Graziella Galea has said she is also considering the bid for PN deputy leadership. Galea was the only female PN MP to have been elected in the first round of the March general election.

The other female MPs were elected through either the casual election process or the new gender quota mechanism.

New MP Janice Chetcuti and outgoing deputy leader David Agius have also not ruled themselves out of the race.

The party has reduced the number of deputy leaders from two to one after recent changes to its statute. Anyone who passes a subsequent due diligence process, would then be formally nominated for the post.

The deputy leadership election is mandatory after the party heavily lost the last election and follows the leadership election that saw Grech reconfirmed with over 80 per cent of the vote.