The biggest myth we are all living is that GonziPN is or represents the Nationalist Party.

It does nothing of the sort. The Nationalist Party, in its traditional understanding, is far wider than the narrow coterie that has become GonziPN.

You meet people who were active inside the party for long, long years, taking many risks, enduring much danger in the pre-1987 years, and who are thoroughly disenchanted with what the party has become today.

Even people who, until just a few months ago, worked very much inside the party or the government centres of power, today sigh with relief that they are no longer “inside there”. Life outside the party or the government provides one with a completely different perspective.

The last election was won, fittingly enough, by one man – Lawrence Gonzi – but he, and we, are now finding out it is one thing to win an election and quite another to govern a country.

What do we have now, and why am I saying the situation is untenable? I refer, of course, to Dr Gonzi’s one seat majority hanging on for dear life in the face of five, six, very angry MPs. But it’s not just that.

Dr Gonzi deliberately chose a small Cabinet, but this isn’t working either. Minister criticises minister, minister obstructs minister, minister contradicts minister. There are rumours that some of the ministers are not even talking to each other. Mainly, it’s every minister doing his (her) own thing with little coordination with the rest.

Even collectively, as was said on the morrow of the 6 June European election defeat, this government is the government most people like to hate.

There is an aggressive Opposition Labour Party out there, making most of the running, gunning to take over at the earliest opportunity. It is true that Maltese politics is not as entrenched, as tribal, as some make it seem. Nevertheless, there will have to be a very serious reason for a Labour supporter to bring himself to vote PN, or vice-versa.

The problem with the thousands of PN supporters who did not vote for GonziPN last June is not that they could vote for PL, but rather that, even in a general election, they can still resist being forced to vote GonziPN against their will. In 2003 and 2008, the power of incumbency was used to the hilt and all clientelar stops were pulled to ensure that people voted PN, even against their wishes.

But the months after the 2008 election have more and more crystallised matters. It is not ideological issues or government stances that divide the vast PN hinterland from GonziPN (we will come to that later) but rather what they see as the usurpation by the small group around Castille of the power and trappings of government. It is the arrogance, by people who are intellectual inferiors, the concentric circles of people, boards, directorates, authorities, agencies, etc., who are chosen on just one criterion: personal loyalty, sometimes even without competence in the field.

Decisions are taken with minimal or no consultation, and forced down the throats of all concerned, even when they are patently wrong or when the whole country is saying they are wrong. It would appear that the present government has somehow become persuaded this is its last legislature and it is going to do things the way it wants to do them because, in any event, it’s going to lose.

Even more, issues that would have been core issues of the Nationalist Party in other times have now been swept aside by a government bent only on following every EU directive as soon as it is issued.

Issues such as illegal immigration, for instance. The PN DNA would be far, far, harder on this issue than the present GonziPN one. Can any Maltese not be daily humiliated by the crowds of asylum seekers waiting under the trees at Marsa and Hal Far with a complacent government looking on and doing nothing?

Then there are the issues such as law and order, with Valletta’s City Gate being a prime example of lawlessness and absence of law enforcement; issues such as cleanliness, the state of the roads, the still widespread abuse of social security.

And, of course, the economy. PN was traditionally the party of the middle class before it widened to include the working class. The austerity measures, the fuel prices, have eaten into the middle class’s reserves and lifestyle and what used to be within reach in other times, has now become a feat, a challenge. Hence the decline not just in such ventures as house purchase but even car purchase.

The middle class has become poorer, its purchasing power has been reduced. It is working harder but the results are not showing. On the one hand, there is a government bent on getting all its dues, such as through VAT, through Income Tax, through fuel prices, etc., but on the other, it does not seem concerned enough to ensure that its citizens get the revenue they require.

It is a government that says it is near to business, but in the actual working of things it is not. Enterprises that are encouraged to set up here are left to their own devices and when they remonstrate that port charges are still very high, they get no response, nor when they complain when government-induced costs are suddenly hiked with no consultation whatever. That’s not what the PN DNA says.

A comparative look at what has happened or is happening in other countries may be instructive. Take Italy, for instance. The old Democrazia Cristiana has been buried. In its stead, three parties represent the Centre Right in various ways: Berlusconi, Azione Nazionale and the Lega. (OK, OK, they are today grouped in one party, but the Italians still see them as three separate ones). The main thing to notice is that none of these three is in any way confessional, whereas GonziPN is still in a way run and dominated by the church. This is not what the PN DNA says: under George Borg Olivier, and earlier, the party stood at some distance from the church. In the post-April 1958 riots against direct government by the British, the church, under Archbishop Gonzi moved in with the administration whereas Borg Olivier stood away. It was only at the famous Paola mass meeting by the church Junta and the “Umbrella parties” that Dr Borg Olivier came in, but even so he markedly stood at some distance. All his politics were nationalist, not doctrinal.

To sum up, for the vast PN hinterland today’s GonziPN does not represent PN’s ideals, history, DNA. It is a small group that has somehow found itself running the government. It is hanging by a thread, attempting to act big but in reality not tackling at all the issues that a PN DNA would consider as vital.

The GonziPN government has very limited possibilities open to it. People speak of a possible reshuffle as if it could change anything. More probably, the network of decision-makers comfortable with taking decisions and being covered by ministers, right or wrong, will militate against any big changes. This is the way it is going to be.

Some may put some hope in the PN backbench but even here I see no sign of any uprising. As it is, in the structure of Maltese politics, the prime minister can do pretty much as he wants and they have next to no power. They do not even get to vote in the meetings of the parliamentary group on proposed legislation.

I have no pat solution to offer. Nor do I think the party itself can offer an alternative. The party today is in a shambles. Its organisation is weak, its capillary network reduced to tatters. Its television station is sinking fast as the latest Broadcasting Authority figures show. And that’s just what outsiders can see. It seemed to attract some new blood in recent months but even this has not been properly nurtured and many have lost heart. What a contrast with Labour!

Ideally, and just speaking speculatively, it is only the creation of a new political machine to re-incarnate the PN DNA that may bring back the disaffected PN voters, those who feel let down by GonziPN. Who, where, how, what will come later, if at all.

Many may think that such a political being will face the same problems as those faced by Alternattiva regarding electoral quotas. Think again. The numbers of disaffected PN voters who refused to vote GonziPN on 6 June, plus the votes obtained by the two far right parties, could conceivably overcome such a high benchmark.

Of course, this is all hypothetical. It depends upon who would want to undertake such an adventure and what kind of support that person would find. It depends upon what kind of backing this venture would get. It also depends upon playing the cards right. If extremism is avoided, more and more people may follow. There could also be people now being attracted to Joseph Muscat’s broad Labour who may come back to what has always been their political home.

The point to understand is that there is no time like today to start this long march. Left until later, it will become impossible, as the election tempo starts to rise and people revert to confrontational tribal politics mode.

What is important is to understand clearly and thoroughly the PN DNA, going back if need be to George Borg Olivier (for even Eddie Fenech Adami, in his own way, short-circuited the PN DNA and turned the party into something else, but at least he had the guts to do it and the ideals to get through) and even before, and to understand how much that DNA could contribute to make Malta a far better place in which to be.