Many are asking what result is needed for Adrian Delia to pass the leadership test on Saturday. The easy answer is that the PN statute is completely silent about this because, understandably, this is the first time ever that a vote of confidence has ever been called on an incumbent PN leader. It’s not like a party statute is meant to provide all the answers, anyway. 

Yet, there must be an answer, for there is little point in having a vote if no-one can quite understand what kind of result is a clear and unequivocally positive one. 

There are three different answers to this question, if you ask me. But only one is valid. 

The first is that only a simple majority of valid votes cast on Saturday would be required for Delia to keep his seat – in others words, the normal 50 per cent plus one vote. This is, at least, what Delia’s entourage would have us believe. But it is not quite true. 

How on earth can a party leader stay at the helm if his party is split down the middle and cannot bring itself to support him? If he cannot command the support of more than half of his own party activists, how can he ever aspire to command the support of the nation?

The second is that Delia would need a two-thirds majority on Saturday – or 66 per cent of the vote. This interpretation is grounded in the provisions of the party statute that regulate the regular election of a party leader whenever there is a leadership contest. In fact, a leadership candidate who ends up on his own in the leadership race is statutorily required to secure 66 per cent of the votes of all party members, the tesserati. 

This provision did not kick in during the leadership election of 2017 because Delia held his final run-off against the other leadership contender, Chris Said, and therefore only required a simple majority; in this event he got 52 per cent. 

But if Said had withdrawn on that occasion, then Delia would still have been required to face the tesserati and seek a two-thirds majority to secure the leadership. In hindsight, given the way that this particular leadership contest unfolded, it is not at all clear whether he would have ever reached this threshold. 

90 per cent of votes in favour is what PN party leaders aspire to achieve if they truly want to feel in control of the party

So, although the statute is silent about Saturday’s vote, then, by analogy, one can apply the two-thirds majority requirement that is normally applied by the statute when a leadership contender is a sole candidate facing the final ballot. 

Either way, there is no question that a two-thirds majority is barely the minimum that Delia can aspire to achieve on Saturday. Anything short of that would be a disaster for him. Only those who are too emotional to see things clearly cannot bring themselves to accept this. 

Thirdly, and most importantly, there is precedent. A vote of confidence was only called on two occasions in recent memory. The first time was in 1996 when, following an election defeat, Eddie Fenech Adami called for a secret vote of confidence on his leadership. 

On this event, he went on to secure an incredible 97 per cent of the votes and won the subsequent general election in 1998. 

The second time round, a vote of confidence was called by Lawrence Gonzi in 2012 following dissent within the parliamentary group that threatened to bring down his government. On this event, Gonzi secured a staggering 96 per cent of the votes of the councillors. Gonzi had made it no secret that he would not stay on as leader unless he topped the 80 per cent mark in the vote. 

Both these votes of confidence sealed the legitimacy of the respective leaders beyond doubt. A threshold that tops 90 per cent of votes in favour is what PN party leaders aspire to achieve if they truly want to feel in control of the party.

For those of us who wish to see the Nationalist Party win again, this is the only threshold that would legitimise Delia’s leadership going forward. 

The question is: will he live up to this standard today?