The acrid, sulphurous smoke that envelops the polarised Maltese political scene has become noticeably thicker of late. We are seeing more episodes of politicians engaging in close combat. The media have started to deploy their heavy artillery, focusing on sensitive political targets. It seems that the softening-up process is over, and the election campaign is in full swing.

We have yet to establish whether the main parties have a war of attrition ahead of them, or a veritable blitzkrieg.

In either case, the omens are grim for the Nationalist Party. The government in general, and many ministers in particular, look down and depressed. The recent multiple crop of corruption cases suggests that the rot has made rapid inroads, and that the tired government is not performing.

Internal dissidence

Dissidence has taken its toll at Pieta, with John Dalli rocking the boat in full public view, and thousands of disillusioned party members deserting the fold. Seasoned commentators are coming round to the view that the PN has reached the bottom of the barrel.

On reflection, this has been long in coming. The malaise, which had struck the country during the Fenech Adami leadership, had to be made good by sustained, heavy taxation and the ensuing austerity– all of which has been building a head of steam. It was the Gonzi government that bore the blame.

Dissatisfaction with the leadership overflowed from the PN inner sanctum onto the media, particularly after the poor results of all the five electoral consultations held since the last general election.

In politics, there is no gratitude

The electorate looks at life from the prism of its interests. It is at once idle and irrelevant for Dr Gonzi and his cohorts to sit in judgement on the sovereign electorate and its deliberations. Wise politicians are best advised to bow their heads and accept reality in the knowledge that, in politics, there is no gratitude.

A political leadership that imposes a forced march on the electorate risks mutiny at worst and, at best, the possibility of stragglers incapable of keeping pace with the main body of supporters.

Dr Gonzi did not cover himself with glory since Dr Fenech Adami made way for him to take over the PN leadership. He has been at the head of a weak party, every so often in disarray.

I remember writing in The Times in November 1997 that the PN was in need of more than a cosmetic change. It looked even then that “its agenda was in danger of decay because the party was not regenerating itself”.

The writing on the wall

It was clear then that the party was, in Lou Bondi’s words at the time, “almost exclusively reactive rather than proactive” The future was writ large all over the wall. The basic contemporary issue is one of leadership, which has proved to be impervious to change.

I recall writing in The Sunday Times of 29 August 1999, that “the PN has been static and its mind congealed” and, only a day later, The Malta Independent on Sunday lamented in a leading article that “ in a year since the last (1996) election, the country has had false dawns as much as there are stars in the sky, and yet the real dawn still has to appear...”

“The citizens out in the streets see their standard of living in real terms falling and, despite all the sweet talk, they feel they are slipping backwards.”

Lack of direction

When these words were written, Dr Fenech Adami had passed his prime. His health had been severely tested, and his party could not really have expected him to endure stresses and strains indefinitely. Some of his political decisions at that time did not bear the marks of the virtuoso.

Direction was lacking. Some ministers carried a stigma, and some young Turks have since shown that there is a wide gap between their ambitions and their abilities.

Ever since, the PN has been bogged down by inertia, behind a smokescreen of constant sound bites. It evoked the image of the ancient regime cast in concrete.

That is why the PN is in the doldrums. It has been unable to achieve the semblance of a turnaround. It is still spending well beyond its means, more taxes have been squeezed out of the electorate and a number of initiatives have yet to take off. And the ministerial team continues to run a government struck stiff by inertia.

The case for a blood transfusion is, to my mind, irresistible. It has been overdue. A major blood transfusion calls for a period of rest.

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