A reform of the Nationalist Party has been in the making for the past few months, ever since veteran politician Louis Galea was chosen by leader Adrian Delia to work on changes within the party structures for the PN to be more effective.

The political crisis of the Joseph Muscat government and the subsequent shift to Robert Abela’s leadership took much of the space on the Maltese media in the past months. But the PN is still undergoing its own trauma which it seems unable to overcome. A debate on whether it should change its name is only the tip of the issue, because much more than the name should be modified for the party to become more relevant.

One thing that needs to be pointed out is that in normal circumstances, and if the Nationalist Party was stronger than it is today, it would have eaten away at the Labour Party’s power after all that happened. But Labour, in their period of distress, were (and still are) lucky that it all took place when the PN is not seen as a valid alternative, to put it mildly. With all its troubles, Labour still appears to have the support of a comfortable majority – and this is largely because the PN is in its own miserable state.

The numbers in a survey that was published last Sunday in MaltaToday give a very clear picture of the situation. Robert Abela, the new Prime Minister, enjoys a much wider support than the Opposition Leader, Adrian Delia. No matter what happens – and what happened in the last two to three months was extraordinary – Labour is not losing support. If anything, it strengthened its position, and this in spite of a leader (Joseph Muscat) who resigned amid the worst political crisis ever to hit the country and, added to this, the resignation of the two people who have been causing so much trouble since the Panama Papers scandal erupted: Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi.

It’s as if, with these three out of the way, the overall perception is that the country could move on, quickly recover from the situation of emergency it found itself in and set itself on a new path.

But it is more than Labour being able to reinvent itself and arise from such a predicament. It is the inability of the Nationalist Party to make inroads. It is surreal to think that a party in government sees its support grow in spite of its leader – or, to be precise, his office – being linked to the murder of a journalist. It is also surreal that the party in opposition does not make any headway – or worse, falls even further behind – when all events since November have been in its favour.

It all boils down to one factor – the leadership of the Nationalist Party is unwanted and unloved by many of the party’s own supporters and is mistrusted by the less fanatical section of the population, those who would normally vote Nationalist when Labour is in difficulty or is seen to be responsible for a period of unrest in the country, as has happened in recent times.

Since taking over the reins of the party in 2017, Adrian Delia, and his two deputies, David Agius and Robert Arrigo, together with the party secretary general, Clyde Puli, have been unable to convince a huge chunk of their own supporters as well as a sizeable section of the so-called floating voters that they could lead the country better than Labour.

Once they have not been able to cut down Labour’s lead in spite of having so much to gain from in the last three months, then it is highly unlikely that they will manage to sway the political pendulum in their favour between now and the next election.