It is said that the Opposition never wins an election: it is the government that loses it. Keeping this in mind, I would not worry too much that the results obtained by the Opposition showed practically the same vote difference as those obtained in the general election. The government was in full election mode then and, as promised, I even received my electricity and water bill for a reduced amount during the week of the election!

That there was a third of the electorate that did not vote is also a telling factor one should keep in mind. As a rule, Labour Party supporters tend to vote in greater numbers in these elections than PN voters, who have a greater tendency to take things for granted. That both parties elected three MEPs is a morale booster for the PN, however, and should encourage it to carry out the changes that are required.

There is much the PN can do to improve matters and I will suggest a few that may help. First, the PN must learn to play the game the PL is playing. They both have their core voters, but the PL is forming alliances with certain sectors of society that is tipping the scale in its favour. The PN, without excluding anyone, should look at doing the same thing. This approach should be properly studied and only after this should it go ahead and establish these manifest alliances with different sectors of civil society.

This may not be as difficult as one might think and may not be mutually exclusive, but requires a finely spread networking approach. Second, the PN needs to re-activate its political school in order to start finding and training young and not so young new candidates for its elections. This is very important. Third, the PN needs to set up think-tanks for various sectors of political policy-making in different subjects and stake-holders in society. Policy documents should be drawn up on impending issues which may guide the party and its MPs accordingly through the conundrums and platitudes of modern society, although conscience should always be respected, on social and environmental issues especially. The PN consists of both liberal and conservative elements: it has always been so and so it should remain. There is nothing wrong with pooling political resources as long as the rules of human dignity and the democratic process are respected. The General Council should be more active here!

It is good that the Opposition Leader has stopped the weekly Sunday political tirades as they had become rather stale from both sides: in effect only preaching to the converted. A more interactive type of politics should be adopted that reaches the man in the street. The private members’ bill on obesity is a very good start as, together with Type 2 diabetes, this presents a major health risk in our society.

Fourth, I would choose a more interactional and less functionalist approach to the man in the street and the general public. The PN is inherently functionalist in its approach (which is a good thing) so it needs to place more emphasis on the interactionist element in its politics. The PL has traditionally been very interactionist but has recently taken up the functionalist approach too, with some success. There are signs, however, that it is reverting back to basics! Setting up simply functionalist laws and policies is not enough to induce many people to travel those paths of empowerment. Some people actually need to be helped and prodded along the roads to self-fulfilment.

The environment (in the wider sense) is an issue that – to varying extents – seems to have been neglected by all major parties in Malta in their struggles to retain votes. There is much that may be done here now. I am not going into details here, but I believe that where the environment is concerned, more objective policies will be appreciated by most of the population. Nobody likes the way that the government is subjectively selling itself and the public short on certain issues. The emphasis should be on the eco-social-market economy. Like morality, the environment might not win elections by itself, but without it on board, they might not be won at all.

Avoid being elitist and inward looking, open up the party to everyone and avoid the establishment of reserved cliquish approaches. For starters, for example, vote against this nonsense of ex-MPs keeping the ‘Hon.’ for ‘Honourable’ (‘Onorevoli’) prefix before their names. It is elitist in concept and approach. This prefix is used by Parliament to reduce everyone there to an equal nomenclature (not Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss, Dr, Professor and so on). One is a Member of Parliament primarily to serve the country and when one’s term is over, one returns to membership of civil society (there is a life outside politics, and it might be of a better quality, too!).

This does not mean that MPs should not be properly paid and compensated for the time they give to their country and which they lose from their professions and families, which at the present moment I do not think they adequately are. This is not achieved, however, by keeping trumped up titles, at which rate everybody ends up with variable nomenclatures reminiscent of those of a neighbouring country.

One important revamp that needs to be carried out is on the Party’s newspaper, radio and television station, which are sorely and highly politically biased and therefore lack credibility. One should seek credible partners here in completely overhauling the product and presenting a much less partisan and more politically credible view of national and international affairs. This would reach and appeal to a wider section of the population. The Party’s assets should be used more wisely.

In the final analysis, the product the PN offers the population has to be more attractive than that offered by the PL in government, now constrained by the burdens of actually governing. At the moment, the PN is often perceived as sitting on the fence on many issues. Theodore Roosevelt once said that in any moment of decision-making, the best decision you can make is the right decision. The second best decision you can make is the wrong decision. The worst decision you can possibly make is no decision at all. Too much abstaining in Parliament does not win votes: it makes one look invariably weak! What better political picture is the PN offering society that the PL is failing or unable to uphold? What is the PN selling in policies to society? How does the PN plan to translate its political programme into a better quality of life for the population?

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