Delia campaign questions eligibility of more than 100 PN leadership voters

Updated 8.05pm with Delia comments

Adrian Delia’s campaign team has suggested that a number of “ineligible” voters may have cast their ballot during the Nationalist Party’s leadership election.

Delia narrowly lost the election by 44 votes to Alex Borg, after a counting process that dragged on into the early hours of Sunday morning.

In a letter addressed to the PN’s electoral commissioner Mario Callus, Delia’s team said it had identified 33 people who appeared on the final list of eligible voters, despite never having appeared on previous lists.

The letter, delivered on Monday and seen by Times of Malta, was signed by Delia's campaign manager Paul Borg. It asks for a full list of those who voted and of those who didn't. 

It questions how nine of these 33 people were allowed to vote, despite a directive from the electoral commission barring them from doing so.

Delia's team said that the list containing the names of the 33 people only reached the voting station at the PN’s Pieta headquarters 90 minutes after early voting opened on August 27. It said it was willing to submit an affadavit, declaring this under oath. 

The team also asked for confirmation of whether the voting station in Gozo, where Borg is from, was informed about the list.

Questions were also raised about whether the list was used during subsequent rounds of voting on August 30 and September 6.

Delia’s team claimed Callus told them there were 88 people who had appeared on the final voting list for the first time. The campaign team demanded proof that these 88 people were, in fact, eligible to vote.

Issues were also raised about certain voters between the ages of 16-18.

Delia’s team asked for the complete list of such voters, to verify if they had been PN members for the minimum period of six months needed for them to be eligible to vote.

The campaign team claimed the electoral commission accepted an “order” from PN deputy secretary general Stefan Caruana, who gave them a list of young people who should be given a vote.

Potential issues were also raised about a list of voters who had registered as life-long PN members for the first time during the past year.

Delia’s team said it received information from the electoral commission that, despite these new lifelong members not being eligible to vote, 18 were given a voting document.

The team also questioned how a certain individual, who was named in the letter, was allowed to vote during the election despite resigning from the PN and having been barred from voting in the 2020 leadership race.

Delia’s team demanded a prompt reply to these questions and reserved the right to raise further issues.

In a reaction, PN electoral commission noted that both candidates and/or their representatives had agreed to the lists used in this election, and that the allegations raised were addressed in a meeting on Saturday evening.

"The commission has examined the allegations made and, following its investigation, declares that the outcome of the election for the Leader of the Partit Nazzjonalista is correct," it said in a statement.

Delia said in a Facebook post later on Monday evening: “Whoever is alleging that I am contesting the result of the election for Leader of the Nationalist Party doesn't know what they are saying and even less do they know me”. 

Reminiscent of Labour's 1992 saga

Claims raised by Delia’s team are reminiscent of the 1992 Labour Party leadership election, which pitted Alfred Sant against Lino Spiteri.

Despite Spiteri polling the highest in the first round, Sant ultimately won in the second round amid allegations of vote rigging.

According to reports and Spiteri's own memoirs, "anonymous" letters discrediting Spiteri were sent to the Labour Party's vigilance board.

Furthermore, Paul Muscat, a Labour supporter, admitted to rigging votes against Spiteri, although he later claimed to have fabricated the story initially to undermine Spiteri and subsequently to try to remove Sant after unpopular budget measures were introduced.

However, in a reaction, the Delia team said the purpose of its letter to the PN Electoral Commission is to reconcile its own list of eligible voters with those of the commission and to see who of them has voted. 

"We are not alleging vote rigging and regret that you made this allusion.”