Updated 12.20pm

Bernard Grech has resigned as leader of the Nationalist Party.

He announced his decision to step down in a televised statement on the party's TV station, broadcast on Tuesday at 12pm.

"It is time for a new chapter," he said. "A change in leadership is what is needed to take the party forward."

Grech said he would remain on as leader until a successor is elected through a party leadership race. 

"Whoever he or she is, they will have my absolute support," Grech said. 

The PN leadership race will be formally kicked off by the party's executive committee, which Grech said he would be convening shortly. 

The resignation comes just two days after a MaltaToday survey revealed the PN has dramatically nosedived once again in the polls and that an election tomorrow would see Labour win by a massive 39,000 votes.

The survey also revealed Grech's trust rating was in freefall, trailing Robert Abela by 31 points.

The poll essentially put the two parties exactly where they were in the 2022 general election - a massive blow to PN supporters who had begun to regain hope after last year's encouraging MEP election result.

Recently, however, disgruntlement among party faithful was growing.

In his resignation speech, Grech expressed a measure of disdain for polls, noting how they had been well off the mark in the 2022 MEP elections, predicting a far bigger gap between the parties than the 8,000 vote margin which resulted. 

"When I look back, I am satisfied that I am leaving the party stronger than I found it," Grech said, recalling his one priority when he assumed the leadership was to "unite the party". 

Five years at the helm

Grech, who just turned 54 on Sunday, took the helm of the already-troubled party in 2020, succeeding Adrian Delia at a very tumultuous time.

He comfortably won that leadership contest with 69% of the vote.

Delia’s time at the party’s helm was marked by infighting and poor election results, culminating in a band of rebel MPs manoeuvring to oust him and appoint then-MP Therese Comodini Cachia as opposition leader in his place.

Although Grech was a newcomer to politics, he was already a familiar face, frequently appearing in debates on TV screens across the nation.

Grech was seen as a steady hand, tasked with calming the tempest and uniting the party’s warring factions.

Grech with his predecessor, Adrian Delia. Photo: Jonathan Borg

Initial signs were promising. 

The sniping and in-fighting quickly subsided, with even Delia instantly promising to fall in line and support his successor. And even though PL’s majority remained untouchable, early polls suggested that Grech had managed to stop the party from haemorrhaging more votes.

But Grech’s steady hand could only go so far in winning over new voters, as the catastrophic 2022 elections showed.

The party suffered arguably its worst-ever electoral defeat, trailing Labour by almost 40,000 votes.

Polls continued to show the party was performing abysmally until a year ago at the Naxxar counting hall, when everything seemed to be turning around in one morning.

As the results of the 2024 MEP election began to trickle in, it quickly became clear Labour had its majority dented massively. PL won that election with just over 8,000 votes, and PN supporters began to believe it could soon be their turn to govern.

Grech at the Naxxar counting hall in 2024, surrounded by party delegates, members and MPs. It would prove to be his high point as PN leader. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

But the party did not manage to keep that momentum going, with subsequent opinion polls showing it was losing every chance of winning the next election.

In his resignation speech, Grech noted that his time as party leader had also been marked by loss. 

"During the last five years I lost both my parents, a former deputy leader [Robert Arrigo] and a former general secretary [Francis Zammit Dimech], and perhaps the most painful loss of all, our would-be next general secretary [Karl Gouder].

In a statement, the PN thanked Grech for having united the party, narrowed the gap with Labour in last year's MEP elections and introduced fresh blood into the party. 

"Thank you above all for your work, dedication, integrity and humanity," the party said.