The longer the Nationalist Party prolongs the divorce chapter, the longer it will continue to do itself irreparable harm.
The party’s general council is meeting this weekend and, although the subject up for discussion is employment and solidarity, the main topic will still be the way forward after the divorce referendum. Speakers will deal with this issue, people will be exchanging their views in the corridors and one also expects Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to dedicate a good part of his closing address on what the PN intends to do after it took a stand that was overwhelmingly defeated.
He inexplicably avoided talking about divorce before the referendum, and is avoiding the subject now that it is over. It’s about time that the Prime Minister tells us what he thinks. He cannot continue hiding behind the idea that he is not speaking up so as not to influence others. Leadership demands decisiveness.
Dr Gonzi must be the one who leads the party to a change of strategy. And he must do it quickly.
There is only one option open for the PN. To recover all the ground it has lost in the past months, it must accept the people’s decision, reverse its position on divorce, close the chapter and move on.
The Nationalist Party cannot go against the people’s wishes. Its credibility is at stake.
After its long, hard battle in the 1980s to restore democracy in a country where the Labour Party governed without having obtained the majority of votes, the PN cannot ignore that 53 per cent of voters said Yes to divorce.
After lambasting the Labour Party for sticking to its anti-European Union stand even after the people had voted in favour of accession in a referendum (the Labour Party took months to accept that there was no return from EU membership), the PN cannot now keep back from acknowledging that the people have chosen to have divorce legislation.
It has said that the people’s wishes will be respected, but it is being so reluctant about it that the party is coming across as a sore loser, one that still thinks that the majority of people are wrong. It’s as if the party is waiting for some kind of intervention to put the clock back, or hoping that it wakes up to find out it was only a nightmare.
It is not a question of morality. It is a question of democracy.
Eddie Fenech Adami was a hero to many Nationalists. He was the perfect leader at a time when the party needed level-headedness as it fought for freedom and justice. His years as Prime Minister were characterised by giant steps forward that transformed a country on the brink of civil war into a modern state. His leadership qualities, political acumen and perseverance took Malta into the European Union.
He should have stopped there. While many might have forgiven him from jumping from the seat of Prime Minister to the one of President, the same cannot be said for his repeated interventions on divorce in the last few weeks. His insistence that MPs should vote against the will of the people defeats all that Eddie Fenech Adami stood for in his political career.
I hate to say this, because I really respect the man, but Dr Fenech Adami’s personal crusade is reminding me of Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s Campaign for National Independence, the movement the former Labour leader set up to insist that Malta leaves the EU. Seven years later, KMB is still at it on Smash TV.
This comparison pains me because I know they are poles apart in terms of capabilities. But I cannot help imagining how sad it would be for us to remember Eddie Fenech Adami for his latest intransigence and intolerance, rather than for the country’s achievements under his leadership.
Dr Fenech Adami is still highly influential in the PN. But the party risks losing much more than it already has if it follows its former leader’s wishes and hopes.
The PN must move on. There will be casualties, as people who have strongly opposed divorce such as Austin Gatt will have to resign if they are to stick to their word, but in the long run the party will re-emerge stronger. Right now, it appears as a party that is hesitant, unable to understand the signs of the times. It has lost direction, and it needs to regroup quickly. It must work hard to re-embrace the lost sheep and, judging by the way people voted – it has been estimated that as many as 30 per cent of Nationalist voters put a cross on the “yes” box on 28 May – they have an uphill struggle.
The only way it can win these voters back is to put the divorce issue behind it – by accepting it as a fact. Just as much as the party executive took an official stand against divorce, the same party executive must unequivocally state that the party recognises the people’s choice and is endorsing it. Such action would close the chapter of divorce once and for all. Hard-core Nationalists, the more conservative type, will in the longer term come to terms with it because they will realize that it is for the good of the party, while the more liberal section of the party will once again start to feel comfortable within the party structures.
There’s another thing.
The PN must learn from this mistake and not repeat it when other social issues come up for discussion. There will come a time when other matters will be on the country’s agenda, such as IVF or same-sex relationships, and the PN must remember how much it lost because of the divorce issue before making up its mind on how to tackle these other controversies.
These are “liberal” questions that will have to be handled with care by the PN. It must show that it is not a confessional party the way it portrayed itself to be on the divorce issue. It must not be detached from what the people are thinking the way the party was cut off from reality on divorce. It must create a distance between itself and the Church, unlike the hand-in-hand approach that was evident during the divorce debate.
When Joseph Muscat was elected PL leader and spoke of progressive ideas, the PN laughed at him. They should realise that he is the one on the right track.
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