Safi Mayor Pietru Pawl Busuttil has denied that he is the organiser of a petition calling for Franco Debono to resign from the Nationalist Party.
Mr Busuttil had been interviewed on PBS and was also mentioned on timesofmalta and other media in connection with the petition.
He said today that while he agreed with the petition, he was not the man behind it, he was not involved, and he did not know who was.
Dr Debono had criticised Mr Busuttil and said he should have petitioned for the right for legal assistance during interrogation.
The petition says that voters expect Dr Debono to act in line with the principles he said he believed in, especially that the people were supreme, and to submit to his voters' request for his immediate resignation from Parliament.
It is not known how many people have signed the petition so far. There are 24,449 voters in the fifth district. At the last election, Dr Debono got 2,065 first count votes, compared to 2,317 to Ninu Zammit, 1,791 for Louis Galea and 1m433 for Helen D'Amato.
On facebook, a petition supporting Dr Debono had drawn the backing of 2,946. More than 5,000 have supported a rival petition.
Dr Debono has said he is receiving hundreds of calls and messages supporting him. He said he does not give importance to petitions, especially once the prime minister had voted against the outcome of the nation-wide divorce referendum.