We are nearly two weeks into the campaign leading up to the local councils elections on 11 April, but the Nationalist Party does not seem to have noticed yet.
While the Labour Party is maintaining a slick, well thought out operation that keeps touching base with the electorate day after day, almost hour after hour, the Nationalist Party is almost completely absent.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has been involved in almost daily activities in which he is meeting with people in the localities where elections will take place. Almost every evening, he is passing on the government’s message. On the other hand, the appearances of Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil have been sporadic. The PN’s message is not getting across at all, even on matters on which it should have the upper hand.
When the two of them met face to face on national TV last Tuesday, Joseph Muscat appeared more confident and forward-looking, and easily emerged as the winner. It was not a pure knock-out, but it was as close as he could get to one.
The PN’s campaign started with an extraordinary general council, but the momentum was lost very quickly as the party kept at a distance from the people it wants to convince. Walking on a pavement with candidates of a Nationalist-led council which has done little or nothing in 20 years – with no voters around you – is not the way that the PN should be doing things.
It could be a question of money, since the PN’s financial difficulties are what they are and the party is unable to organise events that would dent its coffers further. But the PN could have easily resolved this issue by using its own structures, such as its clubs in many localities, to at least make its presence felt.
After the 2013 election, it was said that the PN lost so heavily because it had lost contact with the people, in particular the grassroots. Two years later, it does not seem that the PN has learnt the lesson.
Added to this, while Labour’s propaganda machine is well-oiled and convincing, so much so that it manages to rationalise the obscene to make it look palatable, the PN is appearing weak.
It was quite silly, for example, that on Wednesday, the Nationalist Party issued a press call for an event at the Salib tal-Gholja in Siggiewi at 3pm. The press call was issued an hour after the Labour Party had issued a similar call for a press event at the same venue, scheduled for 4pm.
It seemed as if the PN was hastily arranging an activity to pre-empt whatever Labour was about to say. It exposed a party that is chasing its opponents’ tail. It shows that the PN still lags far behind Labour in its marketing strategy.
The PN campaign, it is said, is the brainchild of the party’s secretary general Chris Said, with the assistance of deputy leader of party affairs Beppe Fenech Adami. So any criticism that is to be levelled on the PN’s campaign is to be directed at them, as any defeat – in whatever measure it will come – will have to be.
Simon Busuttil’s fault is that, as a leader, he should not allow this and other things to take place. He should be more forceful in not accepting that others lay down the course he has to follow.