It is reassuring that Adrian Delia is conscious of his own delusions. Repeatedly in his Times Talk interview with Herman Grech he kept premising his more outlandish claims with the prefix ‘in my mind’. It’s a big leap from ‘stat ta’ fatt’. In his mind indeed.
In his mind he’s supported in the party. In his mind he’s learning from the people. In his mind his separation is being used as an excuse to challenge him. In his mind this is about people not accepting his democratic election. In his mind the party structures have been meeting regularly and punctually. In his mind no one in the executive has questions to ask him and the next meeting will be debating the EP elections. In his mind he’s a victim.
And in his mind the Parliamentary Group supports him, though he admits he hasn’t asked them for a while so even in his mind he’s not entirely sure. Maybe he should ask?
There are a few other things that remain in his mind though he didn’t have the grace to qualify them as such.
One is the notion that he would be in contempt of court if he were to defend himself from the accusation that he beat his wife and children. Or even if he would deny it. That phrase – contempt of court – sounds like a nervous tick. Has Adrian Delia ever been found in contempt of court? Did it happen recently?
The refusal to deny he is a child batterer might indeed be fear of consequence in court but not the kind he suggested.
Another one is that il-Mument published “the truth” about Occupy Justice. And in his mind that truth will now make them vote PN, if they’re serious about being against corruption. Another “truth” is that they’re baby-eating abortionists but he still wants them to hop on his platform.
On 1 September 2017, six weeks before she was killed, Daphne Caruana Galizia wrote a post called ‘Good things worth reading’ about James Debono’s writings and my blog. And then she wrote something about the two of us and herself.
“Adrian Delia’s election is set to consign the Nationalist Party into oblivion, but lots of people don’t understand that because they think two monolithic parties are a fact of life. But they are not. People who are appalled by Trumpism, like me and Manuel Delia and James Debono and so many thousands of others, are not going to vote for a party led by Adrian Delia.”
I wasn’t sure she was right about me at the time. Certainly Adrian Delia was not my favourite candidate and I was certainly disappointed when the biċċa blogger candidate ended up winning. But I kept an open mind. Or perhaps residual loyalty to the Nationalist Party made me accept the result and hope things work out.
For a long time I wondered again if Daphne Caruana Galizia was right about me in this respect: that I would not vote for the Nationalist Party in these circumstances when I had done so in all others every time I was entitled to vote.
Take my village, Mqabba. It’s PN administrations of the past have been better than Labour’s years. Should I not vote PN candidates in the hope the village changes sides and get people more focused on the neighbourhood and less on getting a job at the Lands Authority?
Or the European Parliament. When truth and justice where under such threat PN MPs made our arguments elqouently and courageously. Labour MPs alone voted with the fascists and the separatists, refusing to ask Malta’s government to guarantee free speech and take action to honour Daphne Caruana Galizia’s work by allowing her revalations to be investigated.
For a long time I agonised over a difficult decision.
Adrian Delia is making it easier to make up my mind. On Monday he “rose early” to declare war on “traitors”. Then he sat with Herman Grech to clarify who he meant. He meant me for writing this and you for reading it. He meant Occupy Justice because, in his own words, they were not on his platform. He meant everyone that dares to have a mind of their own rather than live in his mind bħala stat ta’ fatt.
Daphne Caruana Galizia called it Trumpism and boy she would have had something to say if she saw Adrian Delia’s trumpian WhatsApp message from yesterday.
But the rest of the quote from her article I showed you here predicts more than the infantile, pre-enlightenment bluster of obscurantist populism. It predicts the message he sends to Occupy Justice. You’re going to have to vote, he tells them. And you’re going to have to vote for me.
You know what? No.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was right about me. I am not going to vote for a party led by Adrian Delia.
As much as Adrian Delia is right to say his party is not perfect, it is also not all black. For reasons that every day are harder and harder for me to fathom, the PN still groups candidates and elected officials that are upstanding, examplary and ideal candidates for public life and for government.
But then, to a lesser extent, so does the Labour Party. But I sure am not going to consider to vote for a party led by Joseph Muscat.
It is true that after that, options start running thin. But no Adrian Delia is going to go on Times Talk to tell me to shut up and follow him because I have no choice. If I wanted someone to think for me, I’d have enlisted in the Red Army.
He says, sarcastically, that “all of a sudden”, after no one had anything on him for 49 years, he is now suspected of money laundering, wife battering, child beating and drug use. He may or may not have been suspected of that long before he came onto the scene and asked the country to make him its Prime Minister. But now he has. And he tells us we have no choice but to shut up and clap and should not bother asking questions of his character, his competence and his ability to negotiate his way round a blind corner, never mind the country’s future.
Oh fuck off, will you?