Inside the PN’s chaotic leadership election night

It was meant to be a decisive moment for the Nationalist Party but last Saturday’s leadership election turned into a long, confusing night that kept the country on edge.

Hours after polls closed in the leadership election, the final result was still shrouded in uncertainty, with claims, objections and mixed signals fuelling frustration among party officials, volunteers, journalists and supporters.

Alex Borg and Adrian Delia shook hands on Tuesday, but the atmosphere appeared bitter for the two former allies after the election to elect a new leader left the two separated by just 44 votes.

At 1am, six hours after voting closed, Borg announced a “new chapter” for the PN, in what was interpreted as a declaration of victory. But party officials insisted the race was still too close to call.

Borg was only confirmed as leader three hours later, at 4am, amid the bewilderment of many fatigued staff, election volunteers, journalists and supporters.

A midnight 'disaster'

On Tuesday, several sources in the PN and close to the two candidates chronicled the drama.

At around 10.30pm on Saturday, volunteers began to flip and sort the 18,000 members’ ballots, showing each one to the eagle-eyed party and candidate representatives before placing them in trays marked with the names of the two candidates.

The two candidates were neck and neck throughout a process that stretched until after midnight. Sources said Borg was coming on top throughout the process, but by a margin too narrow to comfortably call the election as his victory. Meanwhile, minor skirmishes were reported outside the PN headquarters.

At midnight, Times of Malta was told that with 13,600 votes counted, Alex Borg was leading with just 132 votes.

At the end of the process, the representatives of Borg, Delia and the party agreed their tickets showed Borg had won by a few tens of votes – but they were disagreeing on the exact number of votes. The tickets were showing significant differences in the margin.

At this stage, the actual ballots had not yet been counted.

That is when the PN’s electoral commission chair Mario Callus took the preliminary results directly to the candidates, since the election was too close to call publicly.

This decision, a PN source said, “created a disaster” as it immediately gave Delia the opportunity to raise objections. But another source close to the party said that was the plan all along – the commission had previously promised both candidates it would run the result by them first.

Delia's letter

That is when Delia questioned the eligibility of some 100 voters, raising the same issues that were on Monday detailed in a letter sent by his campaign manager to the commission.

The letter the Delia camp sent to the electoral commission on Monday.

He was not taking issue with the sorting and counting process but with the lists of eligible voters that were put together in the weeks ahead of the election.

He argued there were several irregularities in the final lists of voters, including 33 individuals who appeared on the final list despite never being on previous ones, and 88 people who were on the final list for the first time.

Delia also raised questions about voters between the ages of 16 and 18 who may not have met the six-month membership requirement, and 18 newly registered lifelong members who were deemed ineligible, among others.

PN sources said the commission and representatives of both Delia and Borg had already addressed and resolved each issue before early voting began and throughout the voting process, and both candidates had agreed to the final voter lists.

On Saturday night, however, Delia argued that with such a narrow margin, those possibly irregular votes – albeit a few – could be enough to sway the result the other way.

One source said: “Delia was telling the commission to convince him the final list of voters was solid enough to make that wafer-thin victory a fair one.”

Borg announces victory

Meanwhile, reporters at the PN headquarters were mostly left in the dark about what was happening, although it was becoming increasingly clear one of the candidates had an issue with the result.

It was around 1am that Borg published the post that was immediately interpreted as a declaration of victory – and which sources say infuriated Delia, especially since he had not yet conceded defeat.

“Thank you for your support as we begin a new chapter for the Nationalist Party,” Borg wrote, with his campaign slogan, “This is the moment,” prompting celebrations by his supporters outside the Pietà headquarters.

But half an hour later, a party official insisted the race was still too close to call.

Discussions between the two camps and the commission continued, leaving many on the outside questioning what was stalling the result for so long. The live coverage on Net TV was even stopped for a while and the party denied that a recount was under way.

Shortly afterwards, officials began to count the ballots – a process which confirmed Borg had won with the narrow margin of 44 votes.

Callus and the electoral commission released the official result at 4am.  The plan had been for outgoing leader Bernard Grech to speak first, followed by the winner. That did not happen.

On Sunday morning, Delia posted on Facebook congratulating Borg, although he was not present for his rival’s first address at the party headquarters.

But on Monday, Delia’s camp sent a letter to the electoral commission, questioning the eligibility of more than 100 voters, and suggesting that a number of “ineligible” voters may have cast their ballot during the election.

In a reaction, the PN electoral commission stuck to the result and in a Facebook post later on Monday, Delia said: “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.”

Times of Malta is publishing the full contents of that letter.

By Tuesday, however, the two candidates seemed to have put the issues behind them, with both of them uploading the same photo on social media showing them at a meeting with the one-word caption Flimkien (together).