The man who once said, “do not rely on my words alone”, put on a brave face when he faced the media after the fifth drubbing he received at the hands of his opponents, and declared he will win the general election.
Even as he acted out his brave media performance, he seemed unaware of what the media and viewers could see behind him, the massed ranks of PN councillors who had just been elected, or re-elected. There was no synchronicity between Dr Gonzi’s brave face and words and the expressions on the people behind him. On the contrary, there was visible despondency and glum faces. They had the appearance of a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights at night, or people caught in very dire foreboding. Their faces disproved everything that Dr Gonzi was saying: that the defeat did not mean much, that the people who did not turn out to vote on a cold and rainy Saturday in March would surely come out and vote PN in the general election. Not even the PN’s elected councillors believed what its leader had to say.
Nor would they probably have felt better after analysing what Dr Gonzi had to say regarding what he plans to do from here to election day: Work and more work.
What they will most probably have taken this to mean will be more of the same and then some. Dr Gonzi was committing his administration to finish all the various bits and pieces left undone after the hectic pre-local council elections weeks. It will mean ministers running here and there and appearing countless times on the news as they open countless small roads and small bits here and there.
It may even mean the completion of some of the signal public works that Dr Gonzi’s administration has been working on, especially the new hospital but here the first doubts start to creep in. For it is not by more ministerial activities that things such as the new hospital will be completed, but through taking some very difficult decisions.
The new phase of this government’s lifetime will most probably see the government tackling, in the coming weeks, some thorny issues that have been kept on the backburner in the run-up to the elections (much good though that has done to the party’s fortunes). Time has already been lost and, even as Dr Gonzi continued to give out signals he intends to stay in power as long as he can, the timeframe which will lead to these decisions becoming effective is getting slimmer all the time. Time is running out, and time has been lost while important decisions were kept hidden hoping against hope the electoral trouncing would be less severe.
This is no time, however, for panicky ministerial reshuffles or sackings. The timeframe for that elapsed two or three years ago.
Dr Gonzi and his team, a badly advised one if ever there was one, must stop deluding themselves that voters will come out of hiding and will embrace them wholeheartedly come the general election, either because they are grateful for what this government has done for them or because they are still scared stiff of Dr Sant. Dr Gonzi and his team must make voting for them become as attractive then, as it was unattractive last Saturday and that is not easy.
Nor must Dr Gonzi continue to tell the country how much he and his team have worked and what has been done. Thanks for all that, but what people are interested in is what does he propose to do if elected to government over the next legislature. In what will a Gonzi government be different from a Sant government, apart from the faces in the news? The arrogance with which the Nationalist Party has repeatedly faced electors is incredible: the last time anybody apologised for mistakes done was Eddie Fenech Adami in 1998, and that was probably extracted from him by torture.
Dr Gonzi has allowed his ministers too much of a free rein and his Cabinet includes some experts in demolition – demolishing trust, collaboration, working together, singing from one hymn sheet. Huge policy blunders have been made and each blunder has made the government a national laughing stock and it had to backtrack ignominiously. In other areas, some largely apathetic ministers have allowed things to drift or kept their heads well below the parapet, and their leader never even noticed they were not pulling their weight.
It is now far too late to correct the structural flaws in this administration, and some recent attempts by Castille have increasingly discouraged and disappointed some of those who have been working very hard within the folds of this administration. It has even meant some things taking a turn for the worse.
We hope we will not get extra dollops of ‘more of the same’ and we hope even more there will be no demonisation of Dr Sant, for this will now work against the PN. We also hope that as this government realises it is doomed it will not resort to short-term strategies to make temporary allies just for election time: many have not realised so far how easy it is to do so, and how dangerous.
In the end, perhaps the best way forward would be for this administration to live the coming months not in a paroxysm of vote-buying but based on an inner conviction that these are its last months in office. Let it leave a tidy place. Take decisions in the national interest. Do the right things. Adopt a statesman-like stance rather than a partisan one. Take policy frameworks in the proper way, just as it should have done years ago, before it started to panic and multiply mistakes.
This may not lead to its re-election but then re-election is not everything. Taking the proper decisions is what government is all about, more than hogging the seat of power.