As this paper’s sister daily said, the silly season has been put off this year. Or rather, the silly season is here in all its glory all focused on the Nationalist Party leadership telenovela (TV soap opera). The PN leadership campaign is not silly at all: it is deadly serious as it includes not just the leadership of the party in Opposition but also a potential future prime minister of the country.

With nothing else to match it in the long, hot days, the leadership campaign has come to get preponderance in the news bulletins with updates of one sort or another coming up every few minutes.

It all began as a ‘contest between friends’ with staged shots of the four having a coffee in Republic Street but the mood is souring and tempers rising. The four are still friends one hopes, but people are now declaring for one or the other and this is certainly divisive in a party riven by cliques, trends and opinions.

The party is now airing all its internal strife such as it has not done over the past 40 years or so. We have read endless recriminations about the past and the remote past. Past hurts are being relived and those who up until yesterday were honoured as heroes have now been rejected, and people who had been sidelined have become today’s heroes.

In reality, there are five, not four, issues at play. There is also the issue, exemplified by Marlene Farrugia yesterday, that says that none of the four is up to standard and the campaign must be reopened. In truth, Dr Farrugia should have been the last to comment, having climbed piggyback on the PN to take two seats in the House from PN candidates.

There are other variations on this theme: some have been arguing against the rule that says only card-carrying and paid-up members are eligible to vote. These claim that new PN supporters who joined the party during the last campaign should be allowed to vote. This is sometimes done but it comes at a cost: in the UK, Labour allowed people to join and was swamped with left-wingers who tipped the balance in favour of Jeremy Corbyn against moderate candidates.

Others are criticising the formula that is being used. The selection is being carried out by two different electorates. The one on 2 September, which will whittle the candidates down to two, is done by party delegates chosen from the different districts, while that of 16 September, which should choose the party leader, is open to all party members, as long as they have been so for the past two years.

This process will work well if there is a big gap between the top two and the bottom two; but what if they are almost equal? Will it make sense to remove two candidates who together may amount to just less of half the delegates? Nor does there seem to be any possibility of the candidates joining up in coalitions, although undoubtedly this is what will be done.

Right now, after the first two weeks of the campaign, two candidates are, so to speak, from the conservative side of the party, Frank Portelli and Alex Perici Calascione. One, Adrian Delia is an outsider, while Chris Said is a party insider, having been minister and party secretary general. There is no one to represent the progressive side of the party.

There do not seem to have been any poll among the party delegates so far. However, it does seem that so far Frank Portelli is an ‘also ran’. He does not seem to have any group backing him but he has been hitting hard, especially on the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant side that gets him admirers even from outside the party. With his long party militancy, he has been hitting out at the party top levels of the past which had emarginated him. That may get him a protest vote of sorts.

Adrian Delia is the outsider – never a candidate or a party official. Still, he has been running a tough campaign that has made great inroads among supporters. He has been touring clubs, meeting people, holding press conferences and the like, coming up with some novel ideas. My impression is that he still has a mountain to climb although he is gathering quite a number of supporters from inside the party. I have already pointed out that the first selection, by party insiders, is a skewed selection and this may work against Dr Delia.

There is no doubt that Chris Said is the candidate to beat. His past with the party, as a minister and later as a party secretary general ensures continuity that maybe the party does not want as it might prefer a break or a discontinuity considering the meagre results of the past leadership. He has been coming up with proposals that to my mind seemed rather anodyne, if not premature for it will be the party that has to come up with proposals, not the leader on his own. There is no doubt that  he has long been waiting to step in the shoes of the leader but a comparison with Dr Busuttil, even considering his defeat, will not be to Dr Said’s advantage.

Alex Perici Calascione is the dark horse. Many may consider him as another ‘also ran’ but his long militancy inside the party could give him a certain clout. Also, he comes across as rather conservative and this might tap into the growing tide of conservatism inside the party after the Edwin Vassallo debacle. He presents himself well and speaks well. All in all, a novelty for the party as a whole.

Having said all this, there is one other thing that is clear in my mind. The party would be unwise to throw out the valiant battle waged by Simon Busuttil against corruption of all sorts, and nor should the party retreat from the main thrust of Dr Busuttil’s stances.

This is how the state of play appears to me today as I write. Maybe the coming weeks will clarify, confirm or change this perception as the episodes of the summer telenovela go on.

 

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