Adrian Delia’s Shock Regret Over Bernard Grech Resignation Sends Ripples Across Malta’s Political Scene

**Watch: ‘I would have tried to stop Bernard Grech resigning had I known’ – Delia**

In a candid televised moment that has set Maltese living rooms and Facebook comment sections ablaze, former Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia admitted he would have moved to block Bernard Grech’s recent resignation had he been given advance warning. The clip, aired on Monday night’s *Reporter* programme, shows Delia leaning across the café table, espresso untouched, and saying plainly: “Kont nipprova nwaqqfu, jien. Jekk kelli biss kelma ta’ twissija…” (“I would have tried to stop him, myself. If I’d only had a word of warning…”).

For a country where politics is woven into every lace-patterned balcony conversation, the remark feels less like a throw-away line and more like a seismic tremor beneath the PN’s already-cracked façade. Grech’s resignation—delivered in a terse letter to the party executive on 30 April—ended a tumultuous three-year tenure marked by internal revolts, dismal poll numbers and the lingering smell of 2019’s “Back to the Future” leadership contest that first catapulted him over Delia. Now, the very man he defeated is confessing on camera that he would have saved him. In Malta, that is not mere political courtesy; it is *dramma* worthy of a summer festa fireworks show.

Local political analysts immediately dubbed the moment “the *kliem tal-ħniena* (words of mercy) that killed the king.” Bernard Grech’s departure was meant to draw a line under factional warfare and allow the PN to regroup ahead of next June’s European Parliament election. Instead, Delia’s admission has reopened questions about whether the party ever truly resolved its civil war, or simply pressed pause while cameras were rolling. “We’re a nation of 520,000 political coaches,” quipped University of Malta sociologist Dr Maria Pace. “Everybody knows what the PN should do—except the PN itself.”

Culturally, the clip strikes a chord because Maltese value *ħniena*—mercy—almost as highly as *qawwa*, strength. A leader who shows public compassion, even to a rival, earns *għajnuna ta’ min jaħseb*—the quiet respect of thinkers. Yet in the zero-sum game of local partisan loyalty, Delia’s olive branch also risks being read as weakness by hardliners still embittered by 2020’s no-confidence motion that cost him the leadership. One *għanja* folk singer in Żejtun has already penned a fresh *spirtu pront* verse: *“U min jispicca jaħfer, għad jibqa’ kap jew qaddej?”* (“And he who ends up forgiving, does he stay a leader or a servant?”).

On the ground, party volunteers report mixed feelings. “I knocked on doors in Mosta last weekend, and three different pensioners asked me, ‘Why didn’t Adrian and Bernard just talk over a *pastizz* instead of tearing us apart?’” recounted 24-year-old PN activist Raisa Borg. “People are tired of *ġlied ta’ barra*—fights that spill out of the TV and into their family WhatsApp groups.” Her observation hints at a deeper community impact: every PN implosion chips away at the two-party system that has framed Maltese identity since Independence. When the alternative governing force looks incapable of governing itself, disillusioned voters don’t just stay home; some drift to fringe movements or surrender their vote entirely, eroding the civic pride that once made *votare* a rite of passage at 18.

Meanwhile, Labour’s spin machine has wasted no time. Within hours, Labour media replayed Delia’s quote under a banner *“Konfessjoni ta’ Falliment”* (“Confession of Failure”), portraying a PN still hypnotised by past battles. Yet even some government supporters admit privately that a lopsided political landscape is bad for Malta. “We need a PN that functions,” one senior PL strategist conceded off-camera. “Otherwise we end up like a *festa* with only one brass band—technically possible, but nobody dances for long.”

Whether Delia’s televised regret evolves into an active comeback, or remains a sentimental footnote, will depend on the PN’s grassroots. Roughly 18,000 paid-up members will choose the next leader, and many are still undecided. But in a country where *“kliem ikollu konsegwenzi”* (“words have consequences”), Delia’s admission has already shifted the narrative from *who* will lead to *how* the party can heal. For ordinary Maltese, the hope is simple: that politicians spare them another season of *tejatrin* and start offering solutions to rising rents, clogged roads and the ever-present *kost tal-ħajja*. As one Gozitan fisherman summed it up while mending nets beneath the Citadel: “*Ħadd ma jfittex l-għajn ta’ ħadd f’qasam il-politika, imma kulħadd jixtieq qalb tajba.*” (“No one seeks another’s eye in politics, but everyone wants a good heart.”)

The next act of Malta’s longest-running political serial is unwritten. But if Delia’s on-air *ħniena* proves anything, it is that the island’s story is still best told over strong coffee, raw emotion and the stubborn belief that, somehow, the curtain has not yet fallen.