With the choice of the new leader, Joseph Muscat, and the new deputy leaders, Angelo Farrugia and Toni Abela, the generational makeover of the Labour Party is now well on its way, even if not complete (for which one must still await the filling of the party’s administration posts).

The problem, if a problem it is, is that both the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party have roughly the same method of choosing their leaders. The same majority that voted in Lawrence Gonzi in February 2004 voted in Tonio Borg a week later. So that party, with one leader and just one deputy leader, ended up with two clones of each other, rather than with a representative of the minority in the leadership stakes.

In the case of the Labour Party, things are superficially the same but may be different. Labour has two deputy leaders, not one, and, if a rough estimate can be made of Friday’s choices, rather than going for – as the PN media was forecasting all last week – the choice of the “party machine”, it would seem that the delegates did not stick to the same mental template that made them vote in Joseph Muscat a week before. They certainly did not go for people in the Joseph Muscat mold, but went for other qualities in the people now elected as deputy leaders. The template had changed.

Even on Friday morning, when the run-off still had to take place, one could read on many blogs a certain consternation among those who voted for Joe Muscat regarding the two candidates who came out on top on Thursday and who were then confirmed in that night’s second round. And this was not necessarily due to people being under the influence of “the party machine” but rather because the delegates presumably went for the more active, may we say the more aggressive, of the candidates on offer.

Now that the choice has been made, it would seem there is less synergy between the Joe Muscat trio than there was in that of Alfred Sant.

This is just one of the many problems facing Joe Muscat. For all the aggression with which he has been “welcomed” by the usual quarters, he has not had a bad start to his leadership, certainly not to the degree that is being said. People may satirise to their heart’s content, but he came across as young, open, less unbending than his predecessor, and also able to say ‘Sorry’ at times.

Whether this will be enough when the country next goes to the polls still has to be seen, as does whether he can attract Labour people who this time stayed on the sidelines or were even afraid to vote for Alfred Sant.

He made an extra effort, last Sunday, to gather around him Labour’s past, which Sant’s New Labour had all but banned from the party headquarters. That could have been admirable from the party’s point of view, and in the interests of party unity, but some faces there reminded people of the bad old times rather than any glorious past.

Even so, as he was trying to bring the party together, to the extent of paying tribute and a visit to Dom Mintoff as the party of the past, pieces were falling off the party of today. From Joe Debono Grech to Michael Falzon and even George Abela – though in the latter case, and to the credit of both, there seems to have been a rapprochement later in the week – to Evarist Bartolo and his extraordinarily bitter and angry article last Sunday.

There are other pleasures yet to come: who will give up his seat so that Joe Muscat can enter Parliament? Who will contest the MEP election? etc? The Nationalist Party has its fair share of feuds and infighting, but nothing beats Labour, it would seem, for internal wrangling. It does not seem that this leadership election has made things worse, but it still does not look as if it has made things better.

The way the votes were handled, even on television, has avoided, at least as far as can be seen, any re-run of what may have happened between the Rialto and the Macina (although there was a splurge of anonymous emails and spins) but the long sessions of silent men in ties sitting at tables and mostly doing nothing except counting and recounting the same votes did nothing to give a new view of the party, also considering many of these were quite clearly pensioners.

The new party leader has to work hard, far harder than he thinks. Again, the satirists have been having a field day with his chosen way of addressing the conference (like a prayer meeting was the kindest of the remarks made), apart from the way he spoke of his wife, his attitude during party songs and the national anthem, etc.

As was also clear on Xarabank, he must always be ready to admit to what he has said, written or done in the past. Sometimes that does not make for easy days, especially for him who comes with the chrism of the anointed.

To conclude, the beginning was not as auspicious as one would have hoped, though not as disastrous as some are making it appear. But the future, of the party and of himself as leader, will be mostly what Joe Muscat makes it. And that depends on how much he is allowed to be his own man, how much he remains open to dissidents within the party, how much he heals past hurts. And that’s only with regard to himself within the party. And – one almost forgot – how to balance things with the deputy leaders and the rest of the party bigwigs. And then there’s the rest of the country, an electorate still fickle but also ready to trust and to confer leadership.