Failed Nationalist Party leadership contender Frank Portelli is still to officially endorse Adrian Delia, despite sending an e-mail to members yesterday insisting he had no evidence of any wrongdoing by the lawyer.

Dr Portelli failed to make it to the next round in the leadership race, after obtaining just 11 votes from PN general council members.

In an e-mail to party members, Dr Portelli reiterated comments he gave the day before, telling the members he had no evidence of any wrongdoing by Dr Delia.

Asked by the Times of Malta whether the e-mail served as an official endorsement of Dr Delia, who obtained the majority of votes during Saturday’s election, Dr Portelli would not say. Dr Delia obtained 46 per cent of the votes cast.

Instead, Dr Portelli claimed the e-mail was not sent to all members because the party electoral commission had not supplied the complete list of eligible voters at the next round on September 16.

“I do not have a complete list of tesserati [members] because the electoral commission ensured that I was given a very incomplete list, with 80 per cent of the data being incorrect,” he said.

A PN spokesman denied that the claims, insisting that all candidates had received all the available data.

Some members, the spokesman explained, did not have an e-mail address, while in some cases, older members supplied that of a relative, which meant some addresses appeared on the list twice. According to the spokesman, the party had sent all members a letter asking those who wished to update any details to do so, adding that the data supplied to the candidates had included these updates.

Earlier this week, the failed contender also said Chris Said, who won the second-highest number of votes on Saturday, should back out from the leadership race and join forces with Dr Delia.

Dr Portelli said Dr Said would serve as Dr Delia’s second-in-command, a move that would ensure the party did not remain in “chaos”.