If the Nationalist Party is to have any hope of winning future elections it must start by putting an end to all the back-stabbing, David Thake has argued.
Mr Thake, who previously served as a PN councillor and came within a whisker of representing the party in parliament last year’s elections, believes that party leader Adrian Delia’s political manoeuvring to oust his predecessor Simon Busuttil is little more than a power play.
Dr Delia asked Dr Busuttil to suspend himself from the party's parliamentary group on Sunday just hours after the Attorney General published conclusions of an inquiry into Egrant Inc. claims, which exonerated the Prime Minister and his family.
Dr Busuttil has refused, sparking a turf war within the PN.
“Waiting for the full report to be published [before acting] is the most basic requirement which Delia should have respected,” Mr Thake says.
“Delia is not following a logic. Delia is following a political agenda for his own personal political survival.”
Every single person in that council stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Simon Busuttil...repeating that circumstantial evidence and making it fact.
Speaking on Times Talk, he argues that the conclusions should not lead to anyone being forced out of the PN and calls for unity within the party – but immediately goes on to say that in his opinion, the party’s current leader, Dr Delia does not embody the PN’s principles.
Mr Thake slams PN administrative council members who want Dr Busuttil to step aside.
“Every single person in that council stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Simon Busuttil...repeating that circumstantial evidence and making it fact,” he says.
‘We've been drip-fed Egrant inquiry conclusions’
Mr Thake speaks sceptically of the Egrant inquiry conclusions published on Sunday, calling them “a few drip-fed conclusions that Joseph Muscat wants us to read.”
He expresses serious reservations about the inquiry from a procedural point of view, saying “a magistrate is not an investigator.”
“A magistrate requires the cooperation of the police force – a police force that unfortunately seems to be at the beck and call of the prime minister.”
Despite the magistrate in question, Aaron Bugeja, having highlighted a number of discrepancies in the testimonies of former Pilatus Bank employee Maria Efimova, Mr Thake’s trust in her claims remains apparently unshaken.
“Why should they?” he replies when asked whether the inquiry conclusions have tainted his view of Ms Efimova. “She had no interest to stick her neck out. She came out, and said what she saw.”
Watch the full interview with David Thake in the video above.