Even for the neutral observer, if he or she really exists within the confines of this 316-square kilometres of land, the current PN situation must be causing suppressed amusement and some consternation as the struggle to avoid a final rapture rupture hots up. The now brazen turmoil has become daily – no, sorry, hourly – news, with updates, retorts, counter retorts and confrontational social media posts easing themselves into the headlines. The last indications before I signed off this piece were of a dethroning.
But put yourself in the shoes of a true-blue, traditional Nationalist supporter, one who has been through thick and thin and has always been there for the party at both village and national level, and how do you think you would you react to the current diabolical scenario? Where would you go? Towards which side would you incline – the middle-of-the-night poster-sticking apart?
These are not simple questions to answer because, on one side you have a strong group of have-beens with Nationalist roots and a Nationalist DNA but who don’t seem too willing to move aside for the new generation of politicians – who may have their own ideas on how to turn an electoral armageddon into some kind of future – to take over.
On the other side of the burning bridge lies what was, after all, first perceived as the new home-coming for the party, a group of pretenders for the throne who were hooked in by the promise of ‘a new way’ – certainly much-needed, given the results of the past three general elections: 2008, 2013 and 2017.
In the midst of all this there was, of course, the notorious blogger who, after each and every one of these electoral defeats, published and unpublished reports had manifestly blamed for the collapse.
As downbeat PN followers go, however, for them probably nothing sounds more hollow than the ‘heartfelt’ appeals from so-called ‘neutrals’ and rival-party exponents for the PN to get its act back together for the country to have a proper, better-functioning Opposition. It all sounds so noble, albeit hackneyed enough, but the truth is that colossal political conundrums have nothing sentimental or even remotely nostalgic about them; one just has to plod on and hope for the best his or her talent can offer. It really does boil down to that one special person who can plunge into the surging waters, stop the flood and start pumping out the liquid surplus.