Long before the 2008 election, I like many others had noticed that the PN was on a downhill trend after reading about the problems the citizens were experiencing. These were very small problems and could have been addressed without many difficulties, yet the government ignored them and continued with what it called reforms. I too tried to bring the government’s attention to its shortcomings but it did not even bothering to explain why it was acting this way. I once said that what the government needs is a very efficient public relations ministry. I do not know if there is a PR minister, but if there is he should have been sacked years ago.

Everybody knows the result of the 2008 election and in my opinion it was nothing short of a political miracle. I thought those narrow results would have served as a lesson, but I was wrong. Local elections held at the same time produced unpleasant results for the PN. After that there were the European Parliament elections, which also were a disaster for the PN. By that time I had started to speak of the disintegration of the PN, but still the people at the top procrastinated with the excuse that the general election was still three years off. Very soon those three years became one-and-a-half. Then came the famous divorce referendum in which the PN had taken yet another beating. But still nothing was done to mend the damage that had been done years before, but instead, in my opinion, confusion started to seep in, generated from the inside for sometimes selfish reasons. A couple of weeks ago, local elections were held in almost half the country’s localities, and the PN suffered another defeat.

Now the Prime Minister has woken up and seen that things must need to change now or he and his party will doomed in the next general election. In my opinion, the change that is needed is simple: listen to the people.

Only God knows how many votes the PN has lost because of Mepa. I am saying this not because I want the authority to be abolished. Mepa is very useful for the country, but I would never give it the power to be another government. How many votes were lost because of the Transport Authority? How many votes were lost because of the money-hungry warden system, local councils and so on? People are fed up of reading nearly every week about another case of corruption when the results of previous cases are never published. The Prime Minister and his ministers should stop being so arrogant with the people. The most recent example of such arrogance is the Home Affairs Minister’s refusal to reopen the enquiry into Nicholas Azzopardi’s death.

Just after the 2008 election, I said that the PN is killing itself with its own knife, but that was five years ago - now we know that the party is in meltdown. That was Dr Simon Busuttil’s choice of word, and he is saying that now because he has been appointed the Prime Minister’s delegate to address these problems.

I believe that Dr Gonzi could not have made a better choice than choosing Dr Busuttil to represent him. He is young, intelligent and above all loyal to the Prime Minister and the party.

I have experienced all that I have written about here but that is all now past. What I am afraid of is that is too late now to undo what has been done, but I do hope that I am wrong.

Joseph Muscat

MOSTA