Independent Opposition MPs Godfrey Farrugia and Marlene Farrugia have joined a group of Nationalist Party parliamentarians piling pressure on Adrian Delia to step down.
In comments to Times of Malta on Friday afternoon, Dr Farrugia [Godfrey] said that the pair “will not hesitate to set the ball rolling” themselves if the PN’s executive committee failed to convince Dr Delia to go “now”.
Asked whether that meant they were prepared to take the issue to the President, Dr Farrugia confirmed they were ready to do so if Dr Delia, or the PN, did not act.
“We are still hoping that Dr Delia makes a structured exit or that the Nationalist Party sorts out this issue in a responsible, sensible manner.
“However, the national interest demands that this issue is resolved without delay, so yes we will go to the President ourselves if the PN parliamentary group procrastinates further,” Dr Farrugia said.
The two independent MPs were elected to Parliament in 2017 as part of Forza Nazzjonali, a short-lived coalition between the Partit Demokratiku and the PN.
Both former Labour MPs, the pair resigned from the PD in September but retained their parliamentary seats as independent MPs.
“As you are aware, Marlene and myself never succumbed to accepting his leadership as Opposition Leader, due to declarations he had made about the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia while he was campaigning for leadership.
“From day one we were very reluctant to put our trust in someone who abused and incited hatred against a journalist who questioned his suitability and credibility and challenged him to clear his name,” Dr Farrugia said.
Over the past two years, he went on, the two MPs had “continuously insisted” that a change in the PN’s leadership was needed “to galvanise the Opposition into the effective parliamentary force the country so desperately needed it to be”.
“Now that voters have spoken so vehemently about his dismal performance, in the last national survey we would be ready to back his forcible removal if he still resists an elegant and structured exit,” he said.
The majority of the Nationalist Parliamentary group members on Thursday called on Dr Delia to consider his position after a recent poll showed the PN continue losing ground against the ruling Labour Party.
A defiant Dr Delia has insisted he will not step down saying he believed this would be a betrayal to those "who believe the party should once again be theirs”.