I look at some of the names being bandied about as potential leaders of the Nationalist Party, and I think, “So help us God”. Equally incredible is the way people are bandying names about as though the entire country is a Nationalist Party Leadership Shop from whose stock they may buy any item they please, whether the stocked item is interested and willing or not. How must certain people feel, when they scroll through the comments boards during their office downtime or back home in the evening, to find that some reader has plucked their name out of his imagination and touted him as a good fit to lead the Opposition party? 

For a little while back there, it began to feel as though Maltese adults were playing a childish game of Pick The Leader, totally oblivious to the gravity of the situation or to the fact that the leader of the Opposition has got to be a seasoned politician. The way I’ve heard people argue, I’m left with the impression – which is not unusual in Malta – that they think anyone can do the job and that no particular training for it is required.

This fits in, of course, with the way in which people from time to time, but more often in the last few days, discuss how I should do my job and even think themselves qualified to advise me on this score. Then they are taken aback when I tell them, as politely as I can, given the circumstances, that their ideas are no doubt excellent – for somebody else – so why don’t they try their hand themselves at a newspaper column and website? And on what number should I ring them when I have ideas about how they should do their job?

The leader of the Nationalist Party is not just a party leader. He or she is also the leader of the Opposition, a constitutional role, and has to be fit for purpose as the other constitutional role of head of government. In the public eye, and not just in reality, he or she has to be perceived as suitable prime minister material.

In the democratic world, one of the functions of political parties is to recruit, socialise and train future holders of the offices of state, and not just future party leaders. Political leaders need to have some innate skills, but they also have to be trained over a number of years, starting in student politics, perhaps, learning what works and what doesn't in the political context they eventually want to lead, then standing for general elections, experiencing reversals and learning from them, moving up the party ranks and learning the ropes while building their networks and knowledge. A major problem Malta faces is that the political parties do not perform this function. People from all walks of life more or less walk in off the streets, stand for election, then when their party is in government, are appointed to the cabinet: straight from the GP surgery, so to speak, to running a key government office implementing policy. The results are invariably problematic, no matter the hype and spin.

European heads of government and Opposition leaders, the leaders of all the mainstream political parties, have in the main – with some notable exceptions like Silvio Berlusconi, who prove the rule – reached that position after being involved in party politics or public administration for most of their adult lives, very often starting in student politics. They did not walk straight in to the post of mainstream party leader, still less Opposition leader, from a law office, medical surgery or business company.

It is bad enough that Malta’s cabinet ministers are rarely trained or experienced professional politicians. The last thing we need is party leaders in the same category. It all starts from the point that our members of parliament are not proper politicians either. They are of the sort who, in countries of a proper size, would be standing for election to the local or regional council, but certainly not selected as candidates for the national parliament, for which the basis for selection is generally a sound political background and experience in politics at various levels. The attitude taken, and it is a sensible one, is that if electors wish to vote for their popular local GP or architect, they can do so at council level. In Malta, we do not have that luxury, but it does not mean that the political parties should not at least make a serious attempt at schooling their politicians.

There has been no grooming of potential future leaders of the Nationalist Party. This function of a political party was never actively developed because it was probably thought unnecessary and, as with the Labour Party, the source of potential threats to the existing leadership. Let’s consider the facts. George Borg Olivier became leader of the Nationalist Party in 1950. Between then and 2004 – 54 years – the party had just one other leader, Eddie Fenech Adami. With just two leaders in more than half a century, it is no surprise at all that the Nationalist Party did not develop one of the primary functions of a modern political party, which is to coach and shape future leaders of Malta in diverse offices of government and state. In the 13 years since then, it has had another two leaders, and now the full extent of the problem is exposed, made far more acute by the fact that people set the bar far higher for the Nationalist Party than they do for Labour. The Maltese electorate would never have accepted Nationalist politicians with secret companies in Panama. I think we are all agreed on that.

Many of the names being bandied about now are of people who are completely inexperienced in politics. Some of them have never even operated in any political context whatsoever. Many of those being mentioned have never had to argue on voters' doorsteps, never had to shine in political debates, and have never experienced the cronyism and attempts at securing patronage that pass off as politics for 60-70% of Maltese electors. They have no idea how to deal with it without giving in to it and without upsetting supplicants. 

But the Nationalist Party has to start somewhere, and inevitably, that somewhere is the list of MPs and MEPs. By definition, that has got to be the starting point, even if MEPs are partly removed from the dark side of Maltese politics. There is no ideal available – when is there ever? – and there will always be baggage, but the shortlist of potential contenders has got to come from there. 

Important as the party leadership is, for it is also the Opposition leadership, the Nationalist Party also needs a good secretary-general with a good assistant. A political party is not a social movement or interest group, but a political organisation present and influential at all levels of the community – or at least, it should be. The Nationalist Party has been failing in this since the late 1990s, with the situation becoming steadily worse as political involvement was removed at community level. People identifying themselves as Nationalist were always a minority – the party tends to appeal most to social groups who are wary of political tribalism - but when the party organised itself and shifted the game onto its natural ground, which is mostly a European outlook, without losing the community touch – as distinct from the common touch - it won majorities for the greater part of the post 1981 era, which, though admittedly small, were enough to save Malta from the excesses of the Labour Party’s approach to government, and lock the country safely into the European Union.

Which reminds me of something I should have mentioned earlier: those who now say that the European Union isn’t doing enough to protect us against our own government should bear in mind how very much worse it would have been with no European Union membership at all, had the man who is now prime minister got his way in 2003.

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