It is now a week since Adrian Delia was elected PN leader and he has very meagre results to show.

Up to the time of writing, he is still not sure that he can get a seat in Parliament and without a seat he cannot be appointed Leader of the Opposition.

All through the last week, the PN media has been pulling out all the stops in its sycophancy register, as it used to do with Simon Busuttil and with Lawrence Gonzi before him: big front page picture, details of all his activities down to the last detail, interviews with the PN media’s star journalist, the works.

He slipped into the role with abandon, turned the two days before the Independence celebration and the mass meeting into mini-mass meetings. He is good at off-the-cuff speeches, which ignited the crowds – such as they were. But at the end of the week he was still without a seat in the House, which resumes tomorrow week.

It was not for want of trying. Meetings were held with the MPs whose possible resignation would not require a casual election. Pressure was exerted but to no avail: the MPs held fast to their seat. (Meanwhile, to offer inducements of any kind constitutes a crime.) Evidently, the MPs in question had not heard that the maxim that the Party is stronger than its members is now official Party dogma.

Nor were those who had openly supported Delia in the campaign ready to lay down their (political) lives for their leader – possibly many were thinking what kind of promotions they stood to get. There was not a Joseph Cuschieri among them all.

Then a crowd of candidates who did not make it in the election but whose cooperation  could be needed in some of the scenarios that were being imagined, offered to stand down to allow a Delia appointment but then when someone analysed the results obtained by these volunteers, it turned out they do not amount to much.

The worst moment came on Thursday, Independence Day, when Dr Delia and his wife – dressed up to the nines – turned up for the solemn political Mass at St John’s but ended up seated among the rest of the congregation, not in the first rows, where there was Simon Busuttil – still the constitutional Leader of the Opposition.

The rest of the country collapsed in guffaws. Not so his ardent supporters. I happened to hear a conversation between two AD fans and you should have heard the bile directed at Simon who was, as they saw it, guilty of being viciously-bent against the real leader.

After all, the real leader was the main speaker at the mass meeting the previous evening and Dr Busuttil had been nowhere to be seen. The speech, like the ones of the preceding days, was not at all memorable. Dr Delia is good at ad-libbing and improvising, much like many bar-speakers who think the audiences they dominate are appreciative of their acumen. But there was not one single ounce of political strategy, profound thought or a sane approach to policy-making. It would seem Dr Delia’s policy advisors had only one strategy to give him – how to get himself elected, which he did (although with just 800 more votes than his opponent).

Even a political novice could have done better, just by looking on and analysing the campaign leading up to today’s German election.

Delia’s policy advisors should have warned him off having Alex Borg Olivier speak at the mass meeting. Not just because of the scandals surrounding his dead parents (which got another airing on Daphne’s blog) but also because the Borg Olivier supporters have long been integrated in the Party and to re-present the scion of the family would have been counter-productive. Does Delia propose to invite John Dalli to speak at his next meeting? Or Franco Debono? Is this what he means when he says he wants to bring the party back together?

Instead of resurrecting past clashes and feuds, he would do better to build bridges with those who did not support him in the campaign. And yet I see no sign of that, despite the dutiful attendance of the two deputy leaders, the secretary-general and others. Many have analysed the body language of certain key people such as Roberta Metsola, and it speaks volumes.

But this would be impossible to do, because the incoming new breed intends to sweep these people out of the Party and replace them, rather than work with them. This is what is wrong with the Delia rollercoaster: all the bile against the establishment was just spin – the real aim is to set up the new establishment, even though it is based on shaky ground.

And now we have the leaking of the report on one Delia prime-mover, Jean-Pierre Debono, accused of somehow tampering with the proxy forms of those too sick or too old to collect them. The parallel is now complete: just as Joseph Muscat has his Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi so Adrian Delia has his Jean-Pierre Debono.

Where will all this end? It is impossible to foresee right now – unless Delia accepts Marlene Farrugia’s offer of a chair… in her kitchen, peeling potatoes.

Delia is certainly not alone in this. Just as Trump promised things he has not been able to deliver, and just as Theresa May promised Brexit and is having trouble delivering it, so too Delia promised the PN thousands that he can fight to win – but is having trouble even getting through the door to Parliament.

 

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