President George Vella said in February that the Opposition leader’s position would no longer be tenable if he lost majority support of his MPs.

Five months ago, the majority of PN MPs had called on PN leader Adrian Delia to consider his position.

What did the president say then?

Speaking to MaltaToday at the time, Vella had said that his duty was to be attentive to what was going on as the constitution obliged him to act.

Asked what could force him to act according to the constitution, Vella had said he needed concrete evidence that a majority of members of the party in opposition did not have confidence in their leader. That, he had said, was in line with article 90 of the constitution.

He had said that he bound himself to article 90 that obliged him to act once he had concrete evidence that the opposition leader did not have majority support. In that case, he had said, the position of the opposition leader would no longer be tenable.

What is the president saying now?

But on Monday, even though he acknowledged Delia had lost majority support, Vella said he could not strip Delia from his position as opposition leader.

Last week, Delia lost a vote of confidence by his parliamentary group and the president has since established that 16 opposition MPs declared they no longer trusted Delia, 11 still did, and one abstained.

Vella said in a statement that if Delia were stripped of the position, the question over who should take his place would be immediately raised. 

The constitution outlined that there had to be a leader of the opposition at all times and it was clear that the leader of the opposition had to be the leader of a political party that had the largest numerical opposition to the government.  

“The dilemma is between following the letter of the constitution and creating a situation that goes against the constitution, or to consider the situation as a special one and adopting special measures,” he said.