Borg vs Delia: Inside Malta’s PN Showdown That’s Redefining Island Politics

Live: Alex Borg declares ‘new PN chapter’ in dramatic race with Adrian Delia
By Aria Zammit, Hot Malta Newsroom

Floriana’s Granaries were still echoing with the brass-band strains of a village festa when Alex Borg stepped onto the impromptu stage, sleeves rolled, voice hoarse, and declared, “Il-PN tiegħu spiċċa – il-PN tagħna għadu kif beda.” The crowd, equal parts diehard Nationalists and curious floaters from across the harbour cities, roared back in a mix of Maltese, English and that unmistakable Bormla drawl. In that moment the island’s oldest party seemed to pivot on its axis: a 38-year-old Qormi-born technocrat challenging the man who had dragged it from 2017’s electoral wreckage to 2022’s razor-thin loss.

Borg’s speech was peppered with references only a Maltese ear would catch – the price of ħobż biż-żejt at the Naxxar farmers’ market, the bottleneck at Marsa junction, the way summer blackouts still send Gozitan grandmothers scurrying for candles. “Adrian rebuilt the façade,” Borg told me afterwards, “but the beams are still termite-eaten. We need a townhouse, not a showroom.” The metaphor landed because Maltese voters have spent generations renovating limestone houses and know exactly what termites can do.

Adrian Delia arrived an hour later, flanked by his Sliema core and a smattering of Mellieħa hunters still grateful for his 2020 spring-hunting push. He looked relaxed, almost amused. “New chapter?” he chuckled into the mic. “I wrote the prologue, the plot twist and the cliff-hanger. Let’s not pretend the sequel starts today.” His supporters waved the old torch-and-key flags; a teenager in a Dingli rock-climbing club hoodie unfurled a banner: “Let Adrian finish the job.”

Yet beneath the theatre lies a deeper cultural fracture. The PN was once the party of the professional middle-class – lawyers in Valletta chambers, doctors in Birkirkara clinics. Under Delia it courted the “silent majority” of rural festa enthusiasts and band-club brass players. Borg, educated at MIT and ex-MFSA fintech adviser, wants to yank it back toward a Start-Up City vision: blockchain sandboxes in SmartCity, drone deliveries from Xewkija to Gozo, a metro that burrows under the Great Siege Road faster than a pastizz from Serkin to the airport.

In the crowd I met Maria Bezzina, 56, a Zurrieq seamstress who has voted PN since Mintoff’s days. “Adrian speaks my language,” she said, patting her husband’s ħamallu-style moustache. “But my son says Alex will stop the brain-drain to Berlin. We’re torn between nostalgia and our children’s futures.” Her dilemma is Malta’s dilemma: a country that sells citizenship to billionaires while its own graduates chase visas.

The race now moves to the party clubs – dimly lit band halls smelling of beer and talc, where committee members chew on timpana and negotiate votes like 18th-century corsairs. Delia has the clubs; Borg has LinkedIn and TikTok, where he live-streams in Maltese with English subtitles, a linguistic tightrope that mirrors the country’s own code-switching soul.

Local impact is already visible. The Gozo Business Chamber issued a cautious statement praising “fresh energy but proven continuity.” The hunters’ federation warned against “urban-centric policies that forget our rural heartbeat.” Even festa enthusiasts are split: the Zejtun parish priest joked that rival band marches might drown out final-count speeches.

By midnight, the Granaries stage had morphed into an impromptu kazin. Someone produced a tray of imqaret, another cracked open Kinnie bottles. A DJ dropped a remix of “Viva l-Labour” and “Għanja tal-PN,” cheekily mashing up both anthems. Borg and Delia shook hands under the flickering festa lights – a very Maltese ceasefire until the next round of feasting and feuding.

The PN will vote in eight weeks. Whichever man wins must convince a nation that its oldest house can be renovated without tearing down the walls that still keep families dry in the first winter storms. As the fireworks above the Granaries faded into a haze of gunpowder and hope, one thing was clear: the next chapter will be written not in party headquarters but in village band clubs, university quadrangles, and the WhatsApp groups where Maltese mothers argue louder than fireworks.