The Nationalist Party has dissected, in great detail, the anatomy of its March 2013 sweeping defeat at the general election polls. 

Following a restructuring of the party’s hierarchy and the complete change of guard at Dar Centrali with the election of a new leader, two new deputy leaders and a new secretary general, the PN is quickly setting about its bid to turn its electoral fortunes around.

But what has the report on Election 2013 told anyone that they did not already know?  Not much that had not already been written clearly on the wall months, if not years earlier.

From general apathy toward the PN after so many years in power, to a small Cabinet that left little room for backbenchers and the ensuing unrest from the rank and file, from the public transport reform debacle to the clumsy handling of Mepa, from the party’s obstinate stance on divorce to the public perceptions of ruling cliques, government arrogance, from stances on hunting to immigration, from the seriously mishandled honoraria issue and to the utilities bills issue. From the party’s post mortem it appears that it was destined to be an electoral victim before the election campaign even got off the ground.

Again, this had all been written on the wall before the starting gun was fired, but having it in black and white from the party’s appointed commission gives the issues at stake more resonance.  Wisdom, they say, is found in hindsight, but then again a great amount of foresight was also missing from the equation that was running the party for the previous five years plus.

But what the party instead did, as the report reflects, was to engage in a defensive negative election campaign in the face of a positive opposing campaign.  But its two main electoral bête noirs – the questionably forced resignation of former Labour deputy leader Anglu Farrugia and the issue of the ‘white block’ saga - the report finds, had very little impact on the electorate.

The party also failed to distance itself from personal attacks by Nationalist sympathisers on certain politicians and Labour-leaning individuals, which at the end of the day reflects poorly on the party seeking to continue governing, and it also grossly underestimated the pull factor of then Opposition leader Joseph Muscat.

In fact, as the PN’s report highlights, the stepping aside of former Labour leader Alfred Sant and the election of Joseph Muscat and his concept of a “movement” had given many a Nationalist and floating voter a reason to swing over to Labour last March, which they did by the thousands.

As for the way forward, the report places great stock in the election of Simon Busuttil as the party’s leader and while the former MEP certainly has a great deal of potential, how he will rise to the very bumpy road ahead of him still remains to be seen.

The 10-year - two term - limit for Nationalist Prime Ministers and the same term for party leaders in Opposition is also interesting in that it is aimed at keeping the party fresh, but at the same time such a limitation may also mean that the party and country could stand to lose people who still have a great deal to offer to both.

Now that he party has dissected and put down on paper the reasons why it lost the last election - and following some 2,500 emails and 120 letters and 135 interviews from interested parties - the question will be whether the party now in opposition for the next five years will heed the report’s findings or whether those recommendations will be left by the wayside much as the writing that was on the wall so clearly before the election had been all but ignored.