The Nationalist Party is at a crossroads and its members are being asked to choose which way to turn to see them through what are arguably the party’s darkest days since the 1980s.

Both candidates, as with all elections, carry their pros, their cons and their baggage. Much has been said over recent weeks about the two men left standing after last Saturday’s whittling down from the four original contenders to the remaining two.

Much has been said by party members and non-party members alike, and we as a newspaper will not delve into those merits, or the lack thereof. Next Saturday, in a vote that will symbolically be counted at the Granaries in Floriana, the venue of the next day’s commencement of the party’s traditional Independence celebrations, the PN’s thousands of members will for the first time be called to cast their ballot to elect their leader.

This will be a first as that choice had previously lied solely in the hands of the party’s councillors. The new rules of the game have changed the landscape considerably.

Both contenders have written consistently in this newspaper over recent weeks and today they make their final pitches to party members on our pages.

Both make solid cases and the choice for the PN at this fork in the road could not be more glaring. Adrian Delia, the political newcomer promising to shake up the system, versus Chris Said, the man who has lived and breathed the party since his teenage years.

Delia embraces his status as a newcomer, writing in today’s issue: “I may not be a politician, granted. But I could be. And, should that happen, I promise three things: zero tolerance to corruption, a clear and transparent political agenda that is determined by the many not the few, and to look to the future with a fresh and energetic outlook.”

Said, meanwhile, embraces his place within the party, writing: “Winning again must by definition start by holding on to the voters that trusted us in the last election. The path to winning again cannot even start if we lose any of the 135,696 voters who backed the PN in June. Those voters voted for the call to integrity of Simon Busuttil. We need to keep them on board too. When cleaning our house, we need to ensure that we do not throw out the baby with the bath water.”

The choice is undoubtedly a tough one at this particular juncture the party has found itself in after two successive hammerings at the general election polls.

The question is under which leadership the Nationalist Party will be able to regroup itself after what has been a bitter party leadership campaign. And at the rate at which things have gone over recent weeks, the party, with the contenders’ respective supporters going at each other like crazed jackals, is looking at a good 20 years on the Opposition benches.

This leadership contest had originally been billed as a contest among friends but since then the gloves have come off and the bare-knuckled fight that ensued did neither the contenders nor the party any favours.

And in the meantime, while the Opposition fell further and further into a state of disarray that it will find exceedingly difficult to extricate itself from, members of government are undoubtedly sitting back and having a good laugh as they prepare to celebrate the first 100 days of the new legislature this morning, regaling in the sight of the Opposition falling to pieces.

The Opposition needs to be reminded that this is not a case of the winner merely taking the spoils. We have said it repeatedly and we will stress it again: the Opposition has a crucial constitutional role to fulfil. After all, having a strong opposition is one of the main underpinnings of having a strong democracy. Not only is a strong Opposition able to challenge the government and keep it in check, but also collaborate with the government and provide essential input on the drafting of new laws and policies.

If this is the state of the party at the moment, it is difficult to imagine how it will be able to pick up the pieces and present a united front once the dust has settled. But that is exactly what the winner next Saturday must do. Both contenders have pledged to continue serving the party in the future, and if they are to do that, we suggest they showing this kind of goodwill at once, in this final week of the leadership campaign, rather than let matters deteriorate any further.