In trying to remould the party in his own image, Lawrence Gonzi has taken us back to the days of the Iron Curtain just before the Berlin Wall came crumbling down. When Eastern European leaders used to run the show regardless of what their nomenklatura thought.

In spite of his promises to deliver a new style of politics, he has gone back to the days when Labour used to be under fire in the Mintoffian era for having a party leader who was allegedly “kollox hu” (he is everything).

But what is even worse is that the whole charade of changing the Nationalist Party from a Partito Nazzionalista and a Christain Democratic Party to a US presidential style movement revolving around one key figure is already failing to yield results.

First we had months of indecision, when the government could not decide on the actual date of the budget.

Later on they were unable to decide on the election date. They only decided to go for it when they realised – at their own expense – that they had not earned themselves any political mileage either from Budget 2008 or from the celebrations linked to the introduction of the euro.

The Prime Minister left it almost till the last minute to decide on which second district to run. And when he did so he did it to bail his party out in an area where they were faring worst. The same way he tried to absolve MEPA and his own Cabinet’s sins by promising to remove it from Minister Pullicino’s hands and take it over himself – always if re-elected!

There was a similar delay in the gonzipn’s formal introduction of the Nationalist candidates, which was held virtually on the eve of the opening of nominations.

The same applies to the launch of the manifesto, which was delayed until almost less than three weeks from the election date in spite of the government having decided to go to the polls quite some time ago.

That gonzipn is not working was also confirmed by the fact that in his first mass meeting, Gonzi, or his mentor Joe Saliba, relegated the whole Cabinet and parliamentary group and candidates to the back rows and had a number of sprightly young upstarts sitting or standing behind him in colourful tee-shirts with GONZIPLN emblazoned on their chests. They seemed to change tack at their second mass meeting at Zabbar by putting the election candidates up in front once again!

The worst thing about the gonzipn charade is not only that it is not working but that the game is being given away by ministers of the caretaker government who have not yet decided to do away with their arrogance and insolent approach.

A case in point was a recent article in your sister publication by Minister Gatt.

After having had reports, from people in the trade and even MY POTENTIAL students as well as strategic alliance IT companies, that a government sourced whispering campaign is going on that Labour will virtually ruin these people economically and scrap most of the beneficial schemes introduced by this government, we had tangible proof when Minister Gatt chose to write an article headed “Your job is in danger” in which he not only chose to rely on the by now traditional fear factor, as do the hacks responsible for the PN advertising campaign in the English language media and their spin masters, he also made some gratuitous and unfounded allegations.

Mainly:

• That Alfred Sant has officially renounced his former acceptance of the European reality.

• That this is nothing short of a pledge to quit the EU.

• That the country is losing again its consensus about its association with Europe

• That we are experiencing a real and present danger of scaring away foreign investment.

It is bad enough for a minister to claim in the heat of a campaign that Labour is a threat to one’s job; the one that one has today and the ones that our sons and daughters will be lining up for in a few years’ time. But it is even worse that such whispering campaigns are going on as I alleged earlier on.

Can the Hon. Minister confirm or deny whether it is true that such talk is going on within his own circles, secretariat or possibly even from his own end too.

Meanwhile gonzipn have just regaled us with a manifesto carrying some 300 electoral promises – 353 to be precise!

Have the Where’s Everybody crowd or any of the PN groupies in the media bothered to ask gonzipn whether all these measures have been costed accurately? And if so how much are they going to cost the taxpayer!

What one can easily do meanwhile is to identify all those pledges which are merely recycled versions of earlier similar pledges, by the PN that were never fulfilled inspire of their being in government for almost 20 years.

No wonder gonzipn has now changed tack.

Until recently he used to beg us to judge him on what he does rather than merely on what he says.

Now the song has changed although the singer has remained the same.

It now reads “Do not judge us on the present but on what the future holds in our manifesto”.

No matter how much Dr Gatt and certain columnists closely connected to the PN hierarchy try to rubbish Alfred Sant and the Labour team, it is becoming increasingly evident that the Nationalist Party in government has not learnt the lessons laid out in the conclusive remarks and recommendations of the post-mortem they had commissioned after losing the EP elections so badly.

An election that had proved one important point, as the 2008 poll is likely to do. That the majority of the Maltese want to be in Europe under a Labour government because they are convinced that while respecting EU laws and regulations, it will not shirk from discussing matters of national importance. The same way that the Austrians, the French, the Greeks and the Portuguese did without in any way jeopardizing their strong commitment to full membership of the EU.

gonzipn practically means that once Gonzi has decided to run the show single-handedly he cannot pin an imminent electoral defeat on his Cabinet anymore, as he might have originally been planning to do.

He will simply have to carry the burden and responsibility of defeat himself.

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Leo Brincat is shadow minister for Foreign Affairs & IT.