![Delia receiving a symbolic handover from his predecessor as party leader, Simon Busuttil, in 2017. Busuttil would continue as an MP until early 2020, when he resigned to take up a job in Brussels. Photo: PN Delia receiving a symbolic handover from his predecessor as party leader, Simon Busuttil, in 2017. Busuttil would continue as an MP until early 2020, when he resigned to take up a job in Brussels. Photo: PN](https://cdn-attachments.timesofmalta.com/827edff60ebe9d577ce0de8755eab40ad84b7716-1601118335-5f6f207f-960x640.jpg)
Adrian Delia has admitted that he was wrong to have pushed for Simon Busuttil to suspend himself from the Nationalist Party's parliamentary group.
The PN leader said that he now considered that decision, made in 2018 on the same day that the attorney general published a set of conclusions from the Egrant inquiry, to be a mistake. Delia would subsequently step back from that decision and instead stripped Busuttil of his portfolio as spokesperson for good governance.
Delia's stance drove a deeper wedge between himself and several members of the party's parliamentary group and led to internal strife concerning his leadership of the PN. Those battles will culminate in a leadership election that ends in a week's time, on Saturday, October 3.
Early voting in the election began on Friday, and by Saturday morning 16% of eligible votes had already been cast.
Speaking on Saturday, Delia argued that he should be allowed to complete his full term before putting his leadership to the test. His Nationalist Party leadership rival Bernard Grech, meanwhile, said no inroads would be possible unless the party would unite itself.
Short of confronting themselves in a face-to-face debate, the two...