When Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi calls the next general election, any time within the next 12 months, he will be facing the electorate in his capacity as PN leader for the first time. Dr Fenech Adami was still leading the party in April 2003 when the present Parliament was sworn in.

Dr Gonzi’s hands-on experience as the man in charge of the cockpit at the Auberge de Castille goes back only to March 2004.

Before that, he had rather limited ministerial experience. His first ministerial appointment was in 1998, when the PN was returned to office after the short-lived MLP inter regnum.

For Dr Gonzi, his brief familiarity with ministerial office was neither an impediment nor a restraining factor. Within a few weeks of his taking office at the Auberge de Castille, his Finance Minister, John Dalli, who was one of the most experienced and the weightiest member of his ministerial team, tendered his resignation.

Undeterred, Gonzi took over the Finance Ministry portfolio. Has he been biting off more than he can chew?

The clear answer is: Much too much.

Missed targets

Over the past four years, the Gonzi government fell short of many of its initial targets. It failed to inject new blood in the Cabinet.

It failed to reactivate and to accelerate the pace of the economy. It has not brought the cost of government under tight control, and the bureaucracy has been consistently – sometimes spectacularly – overshooting expenditure targets. The Mater Dei Hospital project has broken all records in this regard.

Worst of all, inertia, incompetence, or worse, have plagued the administration. A succession of incidents involving corrupt practices came to light, giving an added impetus to the prevailing sense of electoral disenchantment.

We live in times of change. As each new season survives on the leftovers of the past, there are times when it has to struggle to be born.

This notwithstanding, change is the basic law, and everything is bound to yield its place and go. The ruling Nationalist government is no exception.

Sea change

Numbers are more eloquent than words in conveying the significance, and the measure, of the sea change that has been silently taking place under our noses.

Between the last general election in 2003 and the Euro-Parliamentary election in 2004, almost 50,000 electors turned their back on the PN. It was not a Mediterranean aberration, expressive of a momentary disenchantment.

The PN lost each and every subsequent local government election held since then, and the lost sheep did not return. On the contrary, since Gonzi took over the PN leadership, the internecine strife at Pieta intensified and spilled over into the open, with John Dalli assiduously highlighting the extent of the damage.

Assessment

To find out what happened, one has to address the problem. It cannot be said that the PN general staff conducted a proper, honest-to-goodness inquest and analysis of the PN’s performance.

There are many within the Nationalist Party who still want to know what has gone wrong with the management of the party and the quality of its delivery. Within the broader spectrum of the general electorate, there are even more who are beginning to realise that there is a change in wind direction.

Political analysts, media people and academics and, above all, Malta-watchers in Brussels, will be interested in understanding how and why this swing came about, in so far as it reflected the pulse of public opinion and, what, precisely, influenced the outlook of the electorate.

With the arrival of Dr Gonzi as Prime Minister, unfolding developments led to more and more austerity, as the so-called “convergence programme” was implemented, and the yoke of taxation became unbearable for the middle and lower classes. Party insiders soon realised that this was far from a Little Bo Peep nursery thyme situation.

There will be many who agree that the ruling party had had the advantage of long years in office, during which it could have recouped from the ravages of the sustained money-no-problem spending spree It did not.

Some ministers shot themselves in the foot. Allegations and/or accusations relating to sleaze, coming from the Opposition, were not always met with the forcefulness expected by public opinion.

Public perceptions

Irrespective of whether or not there was substance in these charges, perceptions took shape and these were demonstrably in evidence during the recent electoral consultations.

From the revelations about the role of unsavoury criminals in certain activities, from hasty, ill-considered decisions, to a number of zigzags – all of these presented opportunities for the Opposition to gain mileage, and for PN support to become more tepid.

The Nationalist strategists underrated Alfred Sant, who managed to regroup his supporters and has since stretched his arms out beyond the party towards civil society.

On the part of some PN managers, there was the semblance of an arrogant assumption that Alfred Sant was treading on water by projecting a paper image, which was belied by a dark past, suggesting an ominous future.

These managers thought they were credible. It has turned out that they were not. This does not merely indicate bad judgment. It betrays bad, incorrigible management.

The drip-drip effect of all this has had an unmistakable impact on electoral psychology.

The PN change of leadership three years ago provided an opportunity to recoup a good part of the lost ground.

But Dr Gonzi fluffed it – some would say spectacularly.

Lost opportunities

He had an opportunity to bring in new blood – but he retained the same tired team

He had an opportunity to change course or to trim his sails – but he decided to forge ahead in the Fenech Adami furrow, and to press on regardless.

He had an opportunity to mend the PN fences by making some conciliatory gestures to the Opposition, but he persisted, and still persists, in demonising Alfred Sant.

Polarization won him no votes. It may have agitated the political waters when the PN boat was not sufficiently seaworthy. It started to take in water as it was tossed by the waves of criticism, some of which came from within its ranks.

Gonzi found he was in the eye of the storm after long years of hype and puff and spin that claimed “the economy was moving in the right direction”. It was forced, willy-nilly, to start making amends for the excesses and ineptitude of the capricious Fenech Adami years.

A rush of new taxes and other austerity measures took the electorate by storm, and this at a time when the electorate was suffering from severe fatigue.

More than anything else, these are the facts of life that have produced the tidal wave, which has wrought the prevailing electoral change.

No sleight of hand or triumphalism will stop the tide

If it is to be stopped, there has to be change at the top, and a change of direction.

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