As expected, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was confirmed as Labour Party leader with an overwhelming support during the party’s general conference held over the weekend.

Only 20 of those who voted – there were around 60 others who did not turn up - showed some kind of dissent by either voting against his confirmation, invalidating their vote or abstaining.

This is a clear message that the great majority of the party is giving its full backing to the man who took the Labour Party back to government after 15 years.

Dr Muscat was uncontested, very much in the same way that Lawrence Gonzi was uncontested when he put his Nationalist Party leadership to the test a few months ago. They were different circumstances then, but Dr Gonzi was then also confirmed with the support of the great majority of PN councillors. How things have changed.

Dr Muscat’s confirmation as PL leader came right in the middle of what is traditionally a honeymoon period for a new government. Fifty days have passed since the Labour Party won the election, and another 50 have to pass for the honeymoon to be over.

The government has more or less been operating without an Opposition, which is still to find its feet after the terrible loss it succumbed to in the last election. So far, the government has been able to operate without being held accountable to its actions, as the Nationalist Party is undergoing a restructuring process that will only start to be completed when the new leader is elected and the new administrative structure is set up.

The PN has tried to point out deficiencies in the way the government has operated in these first few weeks in office. The way permanent secretaries were told to resign, the way a parliamentary secretary was allowed to continue to work in spite of going against the code of ethics and the criticism of the President’s speech were three occasions in which the PN showed its concern about the way things were going.

But the positions taken by the PN were feeble for one simple reason – that the party is still without a leader. Dr Lawrence Gonzi has given interviews following his announcement that he will not seek re-election, but he has otherwise kept a very low profile. As such, the PN is therefore still rudderless and any kind of criticism has failed to reach its target as it should have.

For example, Dr Muscat’s reasoning that it is justified for a parliamentary secretary to continue practicing in medicine because in the past Nationalist ministers gave lectures at University – when the Constitution provides for such an exception to be made – would have been pounced upon by a Nationalist Party in full gear. But, as it happened, the Prime Minister’s mistake went by as if nothing had happened.