The Nationalist Party will this month convene its General Council to confirm or replace Bernard Grech as party leader after last month’s crushing defeat at the polls.

The party statute lays down that, following a general election, party councillors must be given the chance to vote on whether to confirm the leader in office or elect a new one.

That process kicked off last week with a meeting of party’s administrative council and will continue with a meeting of the party's executive council, which includes MPs.

Following Tuesday's casual elections to fill the seats vacated by Nationalist Party MPs elected on two districts, the PN parliamentary group held its first meeting on Tuesday evening.

During this meeting, 13 PN MPs were chosen as the members of the party executive with voting rights. These are: Darren Carabott, Jerome Caruana Cilia, Julie Zahra, Janice Chetcuti, Ian Vassallo, Ivan Castillo, Ryan Callus, Alex Borg, Rebekah Cilia, Karol Aquilina, Paula Mifsud Bonnici and Ivan Bartolo,  Charles Azzopardi and Graziella Galea will split the term since they got an equal number of votes. The other members of the parliamentary group sit on the executive but without voting rights.

PN MP Robert Cutajar, who previously served as whip, was chosen as secretary to the parliamentary group. Karol Aquilina previously held this position.

In a statement, the party said that Grech thanked PN MPs who served the party and country in the previous legislature and who failed to get re-elected. He also thanked Aquilina for his work as group secretary.  The secretary's role is different from that of the whip, who still has to be chosen. 

The PN said the process will continue with a party executive meeting which will trigger the General Council later this month. .