Supporters of embattled Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia have been urged to go to the PN headquarters on Tuesday to show their support, according to posts on social media.
The PN parliamentary group is expected to meet on Tuesday amid turmoil within the PN. During last week’s meeting, some MPs called for Dr Delia to step down.
"It's very important we show our force. Pls come and tell all your trusted friends to join us!! We need to show these rebels that we have had enough," a post under a picture of Adrian Delia said.
The party leader told executive committee members on Monday that he would outline a way forward following two massive electoral defeats, sources said.
The party has been in turmoil ever since a poor showing at the European and local council elections.
Tuesday’s meeting comes just one day after the party’s media chief, and close collaborator of Dr Delia, Pierre Portelli handed in his resignation.
Mr Portelli, however, said he would remain part of the party committee.
The Civil Society group Repubblika, in a vaguely-worded statement where it did not name any MPs or party, said on Tuesday afternoon that it was deeply concerned at what appeared to be coordinated attacks and attempts at intimidating Members of Parliament in an effort to get them to submit and comply with views and opinions held by an unquantified number of vociferous individuals.
"Repubblika does not presume to interfere in how political parties regulate themselves internally. However, it is our duty to insist that whatever means a political party uses to promote its political program, those means cannot include intimidation including through the use of social media to mobilise gangs of online thugs whose language and methods appear intended to bend Members of Parliament to their will.
"The Constitutional freedoms of Members of Parliament must also be respected by employees of political parties hired to advise them. Party officials elected from within the membership of their party would also do well to defer to Parliamentarians whose political and constitutional legitimacy arises from having been elected for their role by universal suffrage."
The statement by Repubblika also comes on the back of several outbursts by Pierre Portelli against PN MPs Jason Azzopardi and Karol Aquilina.
In comments to Labour Party’s media after the meeting, Mr Portelli hit out at Dr Azzopardi, insisting the MP needed to learn how to control himself on social media.
Dr Aquilina was the next MP in Mr Portelli’s crosshairs this morning, as the Siġġiewi MP was taken to task for representing Manuel Delia in a case against Net TV.
Mr Delia told the Times of Malta that lawyer Andrew Borg Cardona is his only legal representative in that particular case.