The stance Simon Busuttil took on the Spring Hunting Referendum has left thousands of party supporters feeling aggrieved.
Apologists for this stance, defensively and even more lamely, say that the days of fence-sitting by the party are over.
What the party did on the Civil Union Bill would remain where it belonged, in the long-distant past. They ignore the fact that that was a parliamentary vote, where the vote was taken in the name of Joe Public who has every right to know what stand each and every MP takes on any issue.
The PN leadership knew beforehand that their stand on the referendum would leave a long trail of profoundly hurt supporters.
But the hurt would be small beer compared with that inflicted on them by the party when in power till March 2013.
This time, the injured would remain steadfastly loyal to the party. Though shotgun whipped, members wouldn't be switching in droves again. A time for healing after licking their wounds, and all would be forgiven.
The leadership banked on this and it was right, right in the sense of reading the signs correctly.
Whether the leadership was morally right is highly contentious. The admirable principles that you had flying high over the moral high ground you once stood on, Simon, have now come crashing down, blasted out of the sky by the bird-killers' double-barrelled shotguns.
"No doubt, the overwhelming majority of the members regularly made short shrift of the Easter lamb, the fast-food burger, the Christmas turkey and the Sunday rooster without so much as a slight twinge of conscience", would as likely as not have been one of the arguments put forward during the party's referendum strategy meetings. Most likely, the hapless Maltese rabbit would also have been thrown in for good measure.
The spring hunting derogation you fought so hard for has been a dismal failure. Policing has been a tragic farce and the crowning irony is that only a handful of hunters will ever be beholden to you.
In an eyeball-to-eyeball showdown with the bird hunting lobby, our two spineless political giants were always the first to blink.
Naively, I've always given credit to Simon Busuttil for his bed-rock principles from which nothing and no one would be able to make him budge.
No, Simon. You're no rock.
But there is a way out for these deeply-hurt supporters and for them to remain as loyal as ever to the party.
At the next general election, all they need do is reserve their second-preference vote for the PN, and give their first-preference vote to Alternattiva Demokratika.
With so many hurt PN supporters expressing their distress, the Green Party might one day straighten out the big parties once and for all.
It would be a breath of fresh air for (and from) the environment that would blank out most of Mepa's drawing-boards and spike the hunters' guns.
Were the Green Party to resort to age-old shenanigans, it would no doubt get its comeuppance in short order.
A truly green party would be Malta's hope to break the mould. No longer will our leading politicos be held over, and looking down, well, a barrel.
If it truly behaves as a green party, and clips the bird-killing lobby's wings, the big parties will be able to wriggle out of their predicament by pointing their finger at none other than this new kid on the block.
That would be no skin off the party's nose as long as it would have managed to wet the bird-killers' powder.
Joseph Genovese
Birkirkara