Adrian Delia, the frontrunner for the Nationalist Party leadership, has flat-out denied any links with freemasonry after rumours started bubbling around that he could be a member of the secret society.

“Absolutely not, ever and whoever made those accusations should be held responsible to substantiate them,” Delia told Lovin Malta.

With less than two weeks to go before the new PN leader is elected, PN MP Karol Aquilina took to Facebook to warn the Freemasons could be trying to influence the election.

“The worst thing that could befall a Maltese political party is for it to fall under the control of freemasonry,” he said.

Several people instantly took it to mean that he was referring to Adrian Delia, the lawyer and former Birkirkara FC president, who won the first round of the PN election by a landslide last weekend.

These included the government’s planning consultant Robert Musumeci, as well as Frank Portelli, who was knocked out of the leadership race last weekend.

Journalist-blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia warned freemasons are looking to hijack the PN as they have already hijacked Labour.

“Eddie Fenech Adami was the big enemy of Freemasonry, feared it and tried – as I recall – to corral those he knew or suspected to be members of the Society of Aprons,” she wrote. “And so it is cruelly ironic to watch what it is happening now. I see that I am not the only one who has made this observation, which I have kept to myself so far. If you work out the links between individuals in this ugly spectacle, including who is supporting whom publicly and privately, it’s not difficult to reach a safe conclusion.”

Aquilina told Lovin Malta he wasn’t implying either Delia or his competitor Chris Said was a freemason, and that he simply wanted to make a fundamental point.

“I’ve never heard either Delia or Said are masons, and I must rely on their declarations,” he said, before adding: “But masons make their choices at the end of the day…secret societies try to influence power.”

He said supporting freemasonry was “totally incompatible” with the PN, so much so that anyone found with links to the secret society is instantly kicked out of the party.

“I wanted to make a point that this is a fundamental issue for me,” he said. “Secret societies care about their own self-interests, and so shouldn’t have influence over political parties whose concern is the common good.”

Aquilina is the president of the PN’s administrative council, which recently urged Delia to withdraw from the leadership race in the wake of reports he had laundered money from a Soho prostitution ring.

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