Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia can no longer just parry blows raining down on him from within the shadows of his own party, his friend and architect Robert Musumeci believes.
"He cannot afford to wait any longer," Dr Musumeci tells Times Talk. "He has to identify and reward the people who are truly loyal to him. And if he has decisions to take, he has to take them, decisively."
Dr Musumeci sees no reason the flailing PN leader - who has yet to convene his parliamentary group this year - should step aside, and implies the ongoing sniping is cowardly.
"Of course they have the right to criticise," he agrees of Dr Delia's MP critics. "But why don't they come out and do so in the open?" he asks with a hint of a smile.
In this Times Talk interview, the architect and lawyer also defends himself from suggestions that he is the "ODZ king" - "I don't think that's an appropriate description" - and shoots down suggestions that he helped shaped planning policies which he can then apply as a private architect.
"Newspapers keep saying I have something to do with this [ODZ] policy. If journalists want to say so, I’m not going to argue – but it’s not the case," he insists.
Watch the full Times Talk interview in the above video.