The Nationalist Party’s policies must be targeted towards the people. This must be our mission. Only if we stay close to the people can we understand their needs and devise policies that improve the quality of life of them, their families and the citizens of this country. Only if we stay close to the people can we explain our policy decisions to them in a way they can understand.
The party leadership must focus on the needs, aspirations and desires of the Maltese and Gozitans of today. This can only be done by continuous dialogue with activists at the local level and civil society.
Meetings at this level must be a priority of the new Nationalist leadership. Only by holding them will it be able to judge what the people want, explain the party’s proposals, and gauge the reaction of the public to those proposals.
For this reason, a consultative committee must be set up made up of respected and experiences individuals that should work as a point of reference to the party Leader feeding information and suggestions when this is deemed opportune.
The party finances must be further improved and put on a sound foundation, continuing the work done in the past year. Digital technology and ICT must be utilised to the full to further increase the efficiency of the party machine.
A permanent Ethics Committee must be set up within the party executive. This committee’s mandate will be to monitor and advise the Executive committee regarding matters of ethics and discipline amongst party members. The terms of reference of the Ethics committee should follow the recommendations of the Bonello Commission.
Contact PN must be further developed and given the tools and human resources to be move into sectional committees and to become an independent party department.
Within Parliament, the party must be perceived and act as the party that defends the man in the street, including minorities. We must be their voice, their representative, not their judge.
We must have a parliamentary group that is proactive and flexible in its work, not reactive. We must turn the table, we must set the political agenda in this country not follow it.
Strategic political preparation for all elections, be they local, European or National, must be a continuous on-going process. We must be prepared at all times for any election, even if called early.
The party structure must be focused on building a political and electoral strategy on a continuous basis so that when elections are called and campaigning begins, that campaign will just be a seamless progression and implementation of all the work done before.
The Campaign office must be responsible for organising the campaigns for local, European and General elections.
The office of Campaign Manager must be filled as soon as the Party Leader elections are over. The selected person will be responsible for the setting up of a Strategy Team and to process the results of surveys that the party and other entities may publish.
A lot of good work was done in the past few years to improve and strengthen the party from within and without. We must continue to build on this foundation by keeping an open mind to new developments and suggestions.
We can only do this by remaining focused and united.
Only in this way can we, once again, become a winning Team, a winning Party and by definition a winning Nation.
Alex Perici Calascione is a contender for the Nationalist Party leadership.