I read with great interest the interview given by Dr Mario de Marco to the Times of Malta about his future political plans and the way forward for the PN. De Marco completely excluded any interest in contesting the post of leadership. I believe that he has taken the right decision by assuming his political responsibility at this difficult moment. I respect individuals who assume their political responsibilities. He formed part of the team that led to this catastrophic result. One could argue at length about the role played by de Marco in the strategy adopted by the PN in this election but this is now beyond the point.

Yet what I am stating here regarding de Marco also holds for the PN’s other deputy leader. Till now, no statement has been forthcoming from Beppe Fenech Adami. As someone who has been following the situation within the PN very closely, if there is a person who should shoulder responsibility for this defeat, this is Beppe Fenech Adami. Indeed, he too is responsible for this result.

Simon Busuttil has already assumed responsibility but I disagree with the way he is piloting the election of a new leader. As for Beppe Fenech Adami, not only was he part of the team which led to this catastrophic result but he was the one who was putting the greatest pressure on the Administration by flaunting his surname, thus ensuring that the party adopted the strategies and policies he wanted the party to follow.

He is one who, within the party, steered a politics of exclusion. He is far more anchored to the past than either Busuttil or de Marco. From the start, after the 2013 election, Fenech Adami wanted the party to follow in the footsteps of Cameron, without realizing that Cameron’s policies were disastrous.

If Fenech Adami is mulling contesting the leadership - to which he has a right - he may rest assured that with him at the helm, in five years’ time, the Nationalist Party will be facing a much even worse debacle than the present. Those individuals still anchored to the history of the 1980s should not be at the helm of the party nor in its administration. They are too embittered to conceive a suitable political future for Malta.   

It is now clear that more than one generation needs to pass before the PN is electable again. I recall my father’s assessment of the Nationalist win in 1981. Many still think that the Nationalists won because of Mintoff’s violent tactics. This is a myth. My father maintained that the Nationalists won because of the way Mintoff treated those Maltese employed by the British in the final run down. Most of these employees were Labourite. They ended up downgraded and worse, betrayed by the GWU. In revenge, they voted for the PN.

My father was right. Despite the fact that violence increased between 1981 and 1987, the margin of the PN victory between these years remained the same. The slight increase was due to the fact that the younger generation and new voters wanted a change. This is normal in any electoral process. But the generation that decamped never returned to Labour. They died voting to the PN.

I am afraid that the Nationalist Party is undergoing the same process. Those PN supporters who defected because of the party’s arrogant manner and the way things are being managed within the party will never return to the fold. Many of these voters have had enough of the PN arrogance and politics of exclusion. The only way the PN can regain faith with part of its deserters is by having individuals not linked  to the past assuming a position of power.

Despite all the presumed or true accusations regarding corruption, the Labour Government has still won this election with a landslide. This goes to confirm the analysis made for the past electoral defeat that corruption, or the perception of it, is not the sole or single cause for an electoral defeat. However, if corruption is a factor that causes political defeat, why did this not happen with Labour?

The fact is that it was the aura of arrongance that has led the PN to this pitiful situation. While  Simon Busuttil is not an arrogant person, he was not strong enough to stop those individuals pushing through their preposterous politics, which is one of exclusion, denial and arrogance. On the other hand, Muscat’s success is also due to the fact that he embraced a policy of inclusion, besides having an intuition to choose the right persons.

After this 2017 defeat, a number of individuals, who still voted Nationalist, spoke about the way they were treated by the Nationalist Party on their Facebook pages. Speaking of exclusion, I note with interest that besides having been shunned by both the party and Net TV, the University Radio also put a stop to my analysis of the morning local newspapers. The only person within the PN who continued asking my views was Roderick Agius,  editor of il-Mument.

It was all mapped out in a very neat Masonic manner. Officially, nobody ever issued an order or gave a command but as one presenter told me: “you know, after your article [re De Marco and Hillman], I could not invite you on my programme”. “Listen”, he continued, “no one gave me an order.” I will refrain from naming the chap in question. He is one of those who preaches about democracy and freedom.

All those who played a part, however small, in this defeat have no right to be involved in the future of the PN or dictate the way forward. While in the UK, top aides of Theresa May resigned after the Conservative’s electoral fiasco, in Malta, the top aides of the PN are dictating the way forward for the PN.

At present, the message being conveyed is that there is an interest to delay electing a new leader so that backstage arrangements can be made and the status quo maintained. If this is allowed to happen, more mortification awaits the Nationalist Party. A new leader is urgently required to start rebuilding the party from scratch. In two years’ time this leader will have to face European elections. Were this new leader not to make it in the European ones, as befell Simon Busuttil, neither will he make it in our next general election.

Any defeat can lead to acrimony. But defeats of this quality definitely create tensions and there are many Nationalists who are disgruntled. The party cannot procrastinate any longer. It has to show some respect for these ‘injured’ supporters. It cannot allow any more festering of wounds but it could also be possible that this is just what a number of persons who work behind the scenes at Tal-Pieta’ want. Yet if a sincere effort is made to heal these wounds, the process of reconciliation can truly start in earnest.