On the face of it, there seems to have been unanimity in the country regarding the nomination of Dr George Abela as the next President of the Republic.
Both the media and the airwaves have been full of praise for the proposal and also for what is being described as a new era in inter-party relations.
But behind the scenes, the legions of PN supporters are seething and making very clear, in private comments away from the public eye, how they feel about Dr Gonzi’s decision to propose Dr Abela for the post.
Most if not all have accepted the inevitability of Dr Abela becoming the next President, and many add that Dr Abela, on a personal level, is a more than welcome candidate to succeed Dr Eddie Fenech Adami.
Many have come to their own conclusions on the basis of what they have seen happening over the past week, but many others have received in part or in full the many reactions that have filtered through from the parliamentary group.
Even before last Sunday, many within the parliamentary group had their own ideas about who they wanted to succeed Dr Fenech Adami.
While other names were being bandied around, such as Commissioner Joe Borg, many in the parliamentary group hoped that a sitting minister, such as Giovanna Debono or even Dolores Cristina, would be chosen so that this could free up a ministerial post and induce Dr Gonzi to appoint a new minister or parliamentary secretary from the backbenches.
Others meanwhile had started to believe that the Speaker, Louis Galea, would be the next President and in fact, the group around Dr Galea was the most shocked by the news last Sunday.
The disappointment and even anger felt by the PN backbenchers – and expressed more volubly on Monday than has been reported –that they got to know of the agreement and impending nomination from selected and preferred media, thus pre-empting their discussion and decision, have percolated down to the party supporters and insiders.
“That is not the way to do things,” they complained. “It seems that not even when we come to electing presidents we get it right.”
Personal preferences apart, many Nationalist supporters who have spoken to this paper on conditions of strict anonymity, disagreed on principle with the choice of a person from the Labour camp to become the next President.
They ask if the Prime Minister has obtained any commitment from the Labour Party that if Labour wins the next general election, it will appoint a Nationalist person as President.
They do not accept Dr Gonzi’s argument that offering the presidency to a Labour person was in the interests of national reconciliation.
First of all, they argue, Dr Abela is hardly representative of the Labour Party, seeing that he was soundly beaten in the Labour leadership stakes. And, almost certainly, the Labour leadership would not have nominated him.
Secondly, it cannot be proved that a Nationalist candidate would have been unable to signal and promote national reconciliation. Past PN presidents have ensured national reconciliation in sometimes quite difficult times.
Thirdly, the way the Labour Opposition is acting, according to some PN hardliners, is hardly conducive to national reconciliation. Offering the George Abela presidency to the nation without any quid pro quo is tantamount to making an offer that could hardly be refused without getting anything in return.
Fourthly, offering the country a very moderate and acceptable Labour supporter puts the country well on its way to again accepting that Labour is now moderate and may be tried again with government.
Finally, some PN supporters also point out that by trying to dissuade Dr Alfred Sant from going to the polls back in 1998, Dr Abela would have postponed Malta’s accession to the EU indefinitely. They also point at Dr Abela’s long militancy inside the GWU during the time when GWU was in tandem with the Labour government and asked why has he never distanced himself from what went on during those years.