As Nationalist Party secretary general, Joe Saliba was not perfect. He will be remembered, for example, for the decision taken by the PN to withdraw its candidates who were to contest the Zejtun and Marsa local council election a few years ago, which meant that no election was held in those localities, leading to a Labour Party victory that was smaller than it should have been, considering that both Zejtun and Marsa are Labour strongholds.

This political mistake put the PN in bad light at the time, but at the end of the day Joe Saliba will also be remembered for his victories too. Under his leadership – a secretary general of a party in government is more of a leader than the party leader himself, as the latter’s main duties is the running of the government, not of the party – the PN won two elections, for a total of three to become the first party to achieve such a feat. The PN also won the European Union referendum, after a long and hard battle against the Labour Party, which preferred a partnership agreement.

When Joe Saliba announced his decision to officially retire from politics, it was immediately known that it would have been hard for the PN to find an adequate replacement. Mr Saliba’s political acumen and organisational skills are not easily substituted.

And these fears have proved to be correct, as his successor Paul Borg Olivier, nearly one year into his appointment, is still to find his feet. Moreover, he has already committed two mistakes that the Labour Party has pounced upon to their political advantage.

The first, more famous one, was the email he sent by mistake to his direct political adversary, PL secretary general Jason Micallef, when he intended to forward it to the latter’s namesake Jason Azzopardi, who is parliamentary secretary in the Finance Ministry.

The PL had a field day on that occasion, and accused the PN secretary general of wanting the government to share data information with the party. There ensued a heated public debate that did little to help Dr Borg Olivier’s, and his party’s, credibility.

The second mistake was more recent, when in the ongoing issue regarding Freedom Day celebrations, he tried to take political advantage by saying that the Labour Party was organising a mass meeting on 31 March, turning the national holiday into a partisan activity. He was wrong, because Labour will be holding their main event, the mass meeting, as they usually do on 30 March, and of course Labour were quick to point this out too.

These two mistakes will come back to haunt Dr Borg Olivier, as Labour will no doubt be referring to them when it suits them on a political level, and it seems that he still has a long way to go to become the secretary general that the Nationalist Party needs. Political gaffes such as the ones he has committed expose his inexperience and this could turn into a liability for himself and for the party unless there is a quick change of tack.

As said earlier, a secretary general of a party in government is practically its day-to-day leader. But Dr Borg Olivier has as yet to show the qualities of a leader that his predecessor had. He must choose his words carefully, and avoid embarrassing mistakes that could prove costly.

The Nationalist Party already has a difficult task to convince the electorate that it deserves a fourth consecutive stint in government. If its secretary general continues to show these signs of weakness then it will become even harder.