The greatest danger for the PN as I see it does not relate to whether they change their current leader or stay with him. Nor is it that they’re likely to lose the coming election and perhaps the one following.
Their big danger is that no matter what decision is taken about the leaderhsip issue, that decision will continue to be resisted. To survive, all organizations need to maintain within their ranks a respect for the rules by which they are run. Such rules can be put into effect by means of payments made or withheld – as in a commercial company when dealing with its employees; or by way of loyalty and respect towards agreed rules of behaviour, as in a voluntary association – such as a political party.
It seems like this respect has been dissipated within the PN, which is curious for in the past, whenever breaches could have been opened in the walls that safeguard all functioning political organizations, the PN managed to repair them. I have in mind the occasions when Dr Borg Olivier and three MPs voted against the constitutional amendents that gave birth to the Republic and when Dr Josie Muscat was censured post the 1981 elections.
Nowadays, no matter who the PN leader happens to be, chances are that in a short while, strong internal swells could arise against him/her.
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IS SPAIN SAFE?
In a few days, corona virus infections in Spain spiked and this in areas where tourism flourishes most. In the UK, it was announced that arrivals from Spain would be subjected to a two weeks’ quarantine. And the UK is one of Spain’s most significant tourist markets.
This development again highlights the enormous problem that tourist destinations face. For as long as an effective vaccine against the virus does not exist, people will ask the question: Is it safe where we’re going? And on this track, what could be extremely safe today, might turn out to be extremely unsafe in two days’ time.
Despite the efforts made by political leaders (which one understands) to overcome the fear, from a marketing perspective, the questions about what and where is safe remains like a sword hanging over all tourist destinations, ours included.
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LATE
I failed to understand why it took so long to release the name of the immigrant worker who was killed at a Cottonera construction site. The authorities, it seemed, could not discover immediately who it was.
Now, this should have been an easy matter to resolve. The worker’s employer would have had all the necessary information about him, if only to ensure that prevailing laws about employment, social insurance and taxes were being applied.
One also noted how this death aroused much less of a furore than one would have expected. Why?
I do not want to believe this happened because the death was that of a poor, black, foreign worker. His life was as precious as mine and yours, and as that of the brown skinned workers from Malta who used to emigrate legally or not, to Australia and the US, where they would be treated as “blacks”.