PN reform chief Louis Galea has called on the party’s executive committee president to choose a "new leadership team" within the shortest time possible.
In a letter to embattled PN leader Adrian Delia, Dr Galea said over the past two months his push for reforms had been met with “resistance, ambivalence and foot dragging”.
The former minister was brought in to steer reforms within the party after Dr Delia survived a confidence vote last year.
He said the party’s general council had given a deadline for these reforms to be discussed and decided by the end of last month.
Dr Galea's call follows another by the majority of the Nationalist Parliamentary group members who called on Dr Delia to consider his position.
Dr Delia dismissed that call saying that “diversionary tactics” should not shift the Opposition’s focus away from the government.
Later Robert Arrigo said he would be resigning from deputy leader, while Kristy Debono resigned from her post as president of the Nationalist Party General Council
Dr Galea said he has gone about introducing these reforms with patience, prudence, diplomacy and respect.
He said this was done in the interest of both the party and the county, which urgently needed an effective Opposition.
Dr Galea said he had regularly told the party’s leadership that action needed to be taken with absolute urgency to drag the party out of its current crisis.
“I also told you that with every day that goes by, the situation would get more complex and difficult”, he said in the letter.
According to the letter, a six-hour meeting was held last Saturday prior to the damning MaltaToday poll showing a complete collapse in the party’s support base.
Dr Galea said that apart from reforms to the party’s statute, a discussion had also ensued about the urgent need for a new leadership team at the helm of the party.
The former PN MP said he felt an agreement had been reached to take the necessary steps of approaching individuals to inject fresh blood into the party’s leadership.
He called on the party's executive committee president Alex Perici Calascione to convene a meeting of the executive committee for it to take the necessary steps and select a new leadership team in the shortest time possible.
Such a team was needed for the party to take the necessary decisions to start afresh, he said.
Meeting to be convened - Perici Calascione
In a few minutes following publication of Dr Galea's letter, Dr Perici Calascione said that in view of Dr Galea's request, he would be convening a meeting of the party's executive committee of the Nationalist Party.
"This is a defining moment in which all of us must, fully and without hesitation, act in uncompromising accordance with our responsibility towards our party and towards our country.
"I, for one, fully intend to do so. I feel confident that all concerned will do the same," Dr Perici Calascione said.