Until recently, a number of leadership elections of our two main parties were characterised by a candidate being backed by the establishment and by another who would be representing the anti-establishment. During the Labour Party leadership election in 2008, the party establishment was behind Joseph Muscat. The anti-party establishment rallied round George Abela. In the leadership race between Alfred Sant and Lino Spiteri, the establishment supported the former. We have then had elections where the establishment was totally missing or where the anti-establishment won. I do not think that Eddie Fenech Adami’s election in 1977 represented the victory of the establishment. I believe that his victory signified the victory of those who wanted to break away from Giorgio Borg Olivier’s era. The victory of Mintoff over Boffa, in the distant year of 1949, represented the victory of the anti-establishment over Boffa who was backing others to become leader of the Labour Party.

In the present election for the PN leader, the impression is that we now have two contenders, Chris Said, who is being pictured as the establishment buddy and Adrian Delia who has successfully portrayed himself as the anti-establishment guy. It was Delia who, in the thick of it all, referred to the current PN team as the establishment. He accused it of doing its utmost to force him out of the electoral race. As the anger of a sector of Nationalist supporters against their Party’s Administrative Council is now increasing by the hour, the Party’s stand against Delia has strengthened his political identity. Prior to the Board of Ethics’ political imbroglio, the polls were showing that Delia was going to garnish 33% of the votes from all party councillors. Once the administration started firing its shots, Delia nearly obtained half the votes from party councillors.

However, the truth is that Chris Said is not the candidate of the establishment. The establishment did its utmost to destroy Chris Said. One need only remember how Allied Press tried to side-line him in an attempt to weaken what, until then, was appearing as the candidate who had the widest support amongst the party councillors. The Administration’s plan was to have Said and Perici-Calascione in the second round, but this strategy failed miserably. When it appeared that it was going to fail, a Board of Ethics was fabricated.

The editorial in the Sunday Times is proof of the bias that has helped Delia increase his votes but which has also dealt a very nasty blow to Said. It decreased his share of votes. The fact remains that the Allied Press has now lost its grip on the disgruntled Nationalist Party supporters, and is no longer in a position to influence their voting. This goes to show that the current strategy team within the PN has lost all political bearings.

After 2013, Said started to appear as potential leader. Instead of supporting him, the establishment set in process a whole mechanism to destroy his political identity. Definitely, he has been treated badly by the current administration. He was removed from his post as Secretary General and relegated to Gozo. The official reason given by the establishment was that Said was needed in Gozo to win back our sister island  to the Nationalist fold. In reality, Said was not given any space in which to manoeuvre in Gozo. The Gozo scenario continued to be controlled and manoeuvred from Tal-Pieta’. The PN Administration was working against Said in Gozo. Said was not the PN’s star candidate. The PN wanted new faces. Said represented the old and like most of the previous PN ministers, he was made to feature less and less in the electoral campaign. The Nationalist Party’s star candidate for Gozo was Joe Ellis, a lawyer. If one wants to go with the maxim that photographs tell a story, then Ellis was the candidate being thrust to the fore during all the PN’s political activities in Gozo. This was a clear signal that Ellis was the Party’s anointed.

Despite all these internal antics against him, Said has always remained faithful to the Party. He has always sought to defend the Party even when it had politically aggrieved him. In this vein, I cannot but comment on the questions that journalists put to the four contenders during the last debate on NET TV, prior to the councillors’ voting. Times’ journalist, Kurt Sansone was the one who asked Said about his role in Gozo, knowing full well that Said could not answer his question. An honest answer would have damaged the Party’s core; the same that was still behind the establishment. I interpret Sansone’s question as a calculated dig to torpedo Said’s political credibility. As a politician, Said could not say the truth when in fact he was not responsible for Gozo. Nor could he declare that he had been exiled to Gozo by the Party because he was no longer welcome at Tal-Pieta’. As humanely as possible, he defended his party while stating that the Nationalist Party had made inroads until the power of incumbency was used by Labour and the balance shifted in Labour’s favour.

What these elections are showing is that the current ‘Establishment’ is not able to lead a proper internal campaign. Consequently, imagine just how capable it was to plan an electoral one! Indeed, it is not even capable of evaluating correctly its political moves. It was the establishment’s actions that nearly split the party and this was done for one reason. At all costs, it wanted to keep Simon Busuttil at the helm of the party. But these elections have now shown that Busuttil has lost support within his own party. At least half of the councillors are no longer behind him. After this debacle, irrespective of who wins the support of the PN’s ‘paid-up’ members, it is going to be very difficult for the establishment not to accept the outcome. The PN now finds itself in the ridiculous situation where Adrian Delia, who has part of the current establishment behind him, is appearing as anti-establishment; the person capable of defying Simon Busuttil’s faction. 

Simon Busuttil’s supporters, in panic mode, have ended up insulting many diehard Nationalist voters, in particular, those who have been Nationalists for generations. Their ancestors are now being branded Fascists for supporting the Nationalist cause during the difficult times of colonial rule, in particular, during the inter-war period. Unfortunately, even The Malta Independent, in one of its editorials ended up, wrongly, mixing the political issue of Italianita’ with Fascism. What is even more disturbing is that party supporters, who had been behind the PN in its most difficult moments are now also being equated by Busuttil’s establishment as rabble.

Those who are attacking the Nationalist cause derive their ideas from the political philosophy purported by what is known as the Frankfurt School. But unlike what this School states, true politics is not decided and conditioned by a snobbish middle-class. The middle-class on its own is not able to bring about political change. The middle-classes need the lower strata of society to achieve political change. If Said wants to win, he has to show courage and disassociate himself from those who are now depicting the PN’s grass-roots as Fascists. The candidate who succeeds to garner the support of these grass-roots is going to win this leadership race.