Updated Friday 11.45am with PD statement
Nationalist Party veteran Louis Galea is set to spearhead a party reform process, following a proposal made on Thursday evening by PN leader Adrian Delia.
Dr Delia announced that he had put forward Dr Galea's name towards the end of a six-hour meeting of the executive committee on Thursday night which also saw him invoke a clause in the party statute for a vote of confidence in his leadership to be taken on July 27.
In a statement, the PN said the proposal was unanimously approved by the executive committee.
Dr Galea has been given a year to draw up his report into the state of the PN. During that time, he will meet party members and delve into every aspect of the party and the way it is run.
Although he will report directly to to the party leader, Dr Galea will be authorised to meet with the executive committee and the administrative council.
At 71, Dr Galea is one of the longest-serving members of the PN. He first became a member of the Nationalist Party’s general council and executive committee in 1972 and was a member of the administrative council from 1975 to 1987. He also served as the party’s general secretary from 1977 to 1987.
Dr Galea, a former minister, was first elected to Parliament in 1976, and recently served as Malta's representative at the EU's Court of Auditors.
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The reform proposal was welcomed by Partu Demokratiku, which said that a “compact, credible PN-PD Opposition would rebuild trust in politics”.
“If the PN embarks on the road of honest reform, led by a credible and wise leader, with a clear agenda that the new Nationalist Party would be everything that the Labour Movement of 2013 was supposed to be, and also be everything that the PN was in 1987, then there is hope,” MP Marlene Farrugia said.
“We have a government that is burdened with conflicts of interest, irregularities, clientelism, corruption, lack of transparency, and, worse still, does not distinguish between government and party, and between government and state,” leader Godfrey Farrugia added.