The anger felt by the inner core of the Nationalist Party after the heavy defeat suffered last Sunday in the European Parliament election erupted in full force at a meeting of the PN parliamentary group held on Tuesday evening.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, who sat through the whole meeting, had to hear member after member attacking the party and the government’s direction and blaming them not just for the failure on Saturday but also for making the party and its leaders Malta’s “most hated people”, as one of them put it.

Obviously, there was a lot of personal backdrop to what was said. Some are angry at the way they were sidelined and publicly humiliated after a lifetime of service. Some are livid at the way they feel the party treated them in the past and continues to treat them.

Some, who have so far not found themselves under public attack, are sensing an attack coming. Such are, for instance, Minister Giovanna Debono and party general secretary Paul Borg Olivier. In many cases, one feels that behind the attacks, even if they come publicly from Labour, is an unseen hand of those who stand to benefit by the downfall of the target.

So, yes, there was a lot of personal baggage at the back of Tuesday’s massive eruption.

But there was also, and in massive doses, harsh criticism of the way the party’s EP campaign was waged. The campaign was managed, some said, from beginning to end, badly.

For instance, and this was only one of the examples given on Tuesday, had the party followed a different strategy, it could have preserved at least the third seat. But by focusing all PN votes on Simon Busuttil, the party lost many votes as people squandered their ballots. Labour, on the other hand, spread their votes on different candidates and lost fewer. At many times during the laborious counting process, in fact, the PN had more excess votes than the PL, yet the PL got four seats and the PN just two.

Basically, and this point was made by more than one speaker (only two or so dared defend the party’s election strategy), while the PN slogan insisted on teamwork and on togetherness, in reality there was precious little of this.

There is quite general scepticism within the ranks of the parliamentary group, regarding the quality and ability of the people working within the party structures. The malaise goes down right through to the lower levels. There was a general dearth of volunteers willing to work in preparation for the election, during the voting process and even during the counting.

This was evident even at the counting hall on Sunday where apart from the diehard core group, the party officials present did not seem to realise what had hit them and were wandering about in a dazed fashion.

But if there is a senior official that the parliamentary group hates, as it was put during the meeting, it is not the prime minister, even though criticism against him was characteristically blunt and clear. It’s Austin Gatt.

What rankled the parliamentary group in particular and the party in general was Dr Gatt’s assertion a week before the election that he would have wanted a different surcharge structure but ‘the party stopped’ him. This is roundly denied by most party officials and many speakers on Tuesday pointedly reminded Dr Gatt that the whole national executive of the party was against the surcharge spike but he had insisted and it was imposed on the people. It was madness, one of the speakers said, that just when a recession was coming, water and electricity rates were hiked so far up they negatively affected the quality of life of most of the country.

So far, as PN parliamentary group meetings go, this was once again a generalised eruption of pent-up emotions after a signal event. The last time it happened was at the announcement of George Abela as the new President. So far, the party leaders have let the speakers have their say, without this, in any way, affecting the government’s work. It would seem this is what the prime minister intends it to be, as he tried to urge the meeting to focus on future challenges.

But one is now not so sure this is what is going to happen. The writing is on the wall where the PN is concerned, considering Labour’s massive advantage last Sunday. It could be that an interesting summer lies ahead, people in the know were saying yesterday.