It happens in all political families, so on a certain level there's nothing new.

At the same time, it is surprising every time it happens, in whichever party or political body it happens.

Just as Alfred Sant persuaded himself that the partnership option had won instead of EU accession, just as Eddie Fenech Adami had memorably said in October 1996 the two sides were in a photo finish, when they were quite distant from each other, so too Simon Busuttil has now concluded that the Nationalist Party is 'back in business' because it did not lose the local council elections by 37,000 as it lost in 2013 but by half that amount.

And he rejoiced at that as if he had won the election, rather than lost it.

If one needs proof this was, like the others mentioned, a kneejerk reaction, shouting in the wind, a brave attempt to keep the troops happy and ignorant of the real situation, the, I am tempted to say, viciousness by the party rank and file at the doubters, the naysayers, shows a psychological reaction one can liken to those who emerge bloodied but not broken from a battle.

We got a letter from a frequent contributor criticizing me for asking Dr Busuttil if another drubbing was on the cards, when I made it clear I was speaking before the result and without taking the vote as a whole.

Similarly, blogger Simon Mercieca apparently rounded on our former colleague and now Times journalist Keith Micallef for daring to suggest midweek before the votes were counted that the PN was about to suffer a defeat. Those were the days, I clearly remember, when many PN spin doctors were saying that - although I cannot imagine where they got their information from, nor that Mr Micallef got his information from there, nor whether that rumour was also part of a PN plot to make the truth less unpalatable when it came.

Now we know the figures and we also know the outcome. The first days saw a flurry of comments mainly centred on which localities voted for which party. And, of course, we also have the overall figures: PL went down from 57.3% in the previous local council election in these localities to 53.5% while PN rose from 40.7% in 2012, a year before their most heavy defeat in the general election, to 44.6%. AD remained on 2%.

In my article a fortnight ago, I focused on particular localities. Mosta, first of all. As I said, in the last election the vote swung in PN's direction during the processing of the voting preferences because, going by first votes alone, PL would have won.

This time, after a long vote counting process, the Mosta vote went stably PN with a 3.9% vote increase. Labour's vote decreased by 0.5% only.

I next identified St Paul's Bay which switched from a PL-led council to a PN one. Here Labour suffered a real haemorrhage of votes, 6.5% less, while on a very meagre voter turnout, PN increased its share by 3.4%.  Even so, it was only on Sunday mid-morning that the outcome was finally settled, having veered from one side to the other a full day and a night.

Unnoticed by many, the PL vote suffered its greatest loss in the St Julian's vote, which saw the Labour vote decrease by 9.8%.

If St Julian's is a PN stronghold, attention should be drawn to heavy PL decreases suffered in mainly PL localities like Birzebbuga (-9.3%), Santa Lucija (-9.1%), Dingli (-7.4%), Marsaxlokk (-7.0%) and above all Kirkop (-14.2%).

Gozo can be a case on its own with wild swings such as in Munxar, where the PL increased by 12.2%, while in Ghajnsielem the PN vote decreased by 12.9%. In Qala PL increased its vote by 11.8% while PN decreased by 13.4%. In Nadur PL increased its share by 6.6% and PN decreased its share by no less than 8.2% but still retained leadership of the council.

In many cases, local issues, unknown to those living outside the locality, would be the reason for the vote swing. For instance, the PL Birzebbuga vote must have suffered because the veteran PL mayor called it a day. And the PL Kirkop vote suffered because a former PL mayor (and also that of St Paul's Bay in the last term) became a non-party candidate.

But it is also possible to draw some more generic conclusions.

At least two voices from inside Labour - former MEP Joseph Cuschieri and even Minister Evarist Bartolo - called for a more in-depth analysis of the PL vote and for the party to not underestimate the PN leader. Although these comments anticipated the PL leader's boastful and mocking statements made on Sunday, they can be interpreted as reacting to a spirit of euphoria and heavy sarcasm on the PN leader's statements.

On the PN side, after the first reaction that a trouncing such as that of the general election had been avoided, and that the PN has shown signs of a recovery, a more overall assessment is needed.

It is far too facile to say, as the PN leader said, that just because in two years they halved the disadvantage, that means that in the coming three years before the election they may aspire to wipe out the entire disadvantage.

Politics is not like that. If, as I have said earlier, some results were down to local issues, then the increased votes obtained by PN have to deduct those due to local issues, and ditto the votes lost by Labour.

Now that the elections are over, local issues must be left in the hands of the new councils and the general issues must be studied and analysed.

The recent opinion polls (and doubtlessly the parties have additional polls themselves) still show that Labour support still holds strong, that as personalities many more prefer Joseph Muscat to Simon Busuttil and that the people at large consistently support the PL choices.

There are still huge gaps in the national issues where PN has tamely followed the lead set by PL and PN has yet to come up with its own alternative policies.

At the most basic level, however, I feel that just by opposing Labour in anything and in everything, and stridently at that, is being heavily counter-productive. Now that the election season is over, we may perhaps have a long season of partisan peace where there would not be any need for eyeball-to-eyeball sparring.

If the PN leadership thinks that the only alternative to be as silent as a church mouse is to shout all the time, they are digging the seeds of the next defeat. What should distinguish them is the consistency of their proposals.

I still say many people have not forgotten the years of PN arrogance in power and are not ready to forgive the party.

Internally, PN may have changed but some of its changes are even worse than what had been there in the past, and heavens knows how much that needed to be changed.

 

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