There is only one conclusion possible to last Sunday’s election result: the PN government is in serious trouble.

One may object that this is not the first time that a PN government was humiliated at local or European elections. Nor the first time that a party in government was humiliated at the polls. Last Sunday saw the same fate happening to Gordon Brown, for instance, whose Labour Party came a dismal third in the local elections. It is also remarkable that while Europe slid more to abstention, except for Belgium and Luxembourg where voting is obligatory, Malta retained its high turnout, albeit with a slight decrease. And that while Europe slid to the Right, in Malta the electorate turned Left.

But the scale and dimensions of the PL win last Sunday is a grave signal for the sustainability of the present PN administration led by Lawrence Gonzi. In Britain, even before the poll, the knives were out for Gordon Brown during the spate of resignations from Cabinet on or just after the poll and the reshuffle. Here in Malta, which is remarkably less bloody and more restrained than Britain, there have, so far, not been any calls for Dr Gonzi’s replacement, although, as we report today, there was a general insurrection within the party’s parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday.

Nor are there any procedures inside the PN for such an eventuality. But PN, its leaders and its supporters must realise, as anyone with eyes can see, that last Sunday’s results show it to be in a precarious state. Last year’s slim election victory was the result of many factors – Dr Sant’s rather grim perception by the general public, some signal mistakes by the Labour strategists, hard work on the micro level by Dr Gonzi. Dr Sant has been replaced by a younger and more jovial Joseph Muscat. Labour’s strategists were better than the PN ones this time and not many inside the PN worked at all to try and get votes. It would seem the PN itself wanted to lose.

At the press conference last Sunday, Dr Gonzi made much play of a Norman Lamont quote that he was both in office and in power. Just two days later, the parliamentary group, on which he bases both his office and his power, showed him who is the real power.

There is much ill-blood inside the party’s top levels now and this needs, somehow, to be cauterised. Unfortunately, so many persons who could contribute a lot have been sidelined, or even humiliated, while many other persons have ridden roughshod over so many, that one doubts whether there can be any real reconciliation, not in the country as the party used to say, but within the PN itself. There can be no real regeneration of the party unless all can come together and really agree on a plan of action and on the basic principles for which the party stands.

Indeed, what is PN? What does it stand for? Which is its natural humus? It used to be a great party for the middle class but lately this is the class that is being clobbered the most. Granted we are in the middle of a recession, and granted that the country’s finances are in dire straits and that pressure is on to get the finances on an even keel. But does everything and anything have to come out of the pockets of the middle class?

To go once again to international comparisons, why is it that people like Nicolas Sarkozy, Berlusconi, Angela Merkel retained their popular support, or even increased it, while the PN government lost it? The only reason one can find is that the three politicians mentioned have kept their focus on one and only one issue: that whatever they do does not make matters worse for the people in general.

Whereas here we have a government where nothing gets delivered, as Dr Gonzi was admitting last Sunday, where the small man with a small life gets all the authorities climbing on his back for every infraction while the big and the powerful get away with far more. Look at the PN president and what he is doing with the Wied tal-Bahrija. Would any Joe be allowed to do that? We even had a minister who seemed to glee that a tax wrongly taken from people cannot be given back unless the people take the government to court and get a positive judgement.

In other times, the PN government used to pooh-pooh electoral failures and get on with governing. The scale of last Sunday’s rout is far too large and shows up far too many fault lines to be pooh-poohed away. At least, on Sunday, Dr Gonzi showed he was very concerned. What is now expected from him, and from the party at large, is far, far more than a commitment to try and get the people to understand more what the government wanted it to hear.