Bernard Grech won the leadership election by a substantial majority last Saturday, winning 67% of the votes cast by the paid-up members (tesserati).

This was a clear indication that the party no longer supported Adrian Delia as its leader, and indeed many outside of the party were also calling for change.

Grech has a tough road ahead of him. It will be no easy feat to try and catch up with the Labour Party in the polls, but if the PN hopes to make any headway by the next election, he will have to hit the ground running.

In order for him to achieve this, he must first unite the party. That would mean that those who supported Adrian Delia would need to now not only back Grech, but also make amends with the MPs who had pushed for a no confidence vote in the former leader to begin with. This latter point will most likely prove difficult to achieve.

While there were MPs under Delia who supported the former leader out of loyalty to the post, thus meaning that their support will now be thrown behind Grech, there are those who will struggle to forgive the former ‘rebels’ for what they had done.

Achieving such unity will take time and will entail a trust building exercise which will prove most challenging.

But Grech cannot just focus on rebuilding the party from the inside. He must also make the PN more appealing to voters in general.

He has already suffered a hit due to the tax controversy that emerged during the election campaign, and cannot afford more bad press. The PN will now need to focus on dealing with issues of national importance, such as the government’s handling of COVID-19, the upcoming Moneyval result, migration, the several bills making their way through Parliament, coming up with proposals not just for the budget, but also the party’s vision for the future, and continuing to target those who have been tainted with allegations of corruption and fight to bring them to justice.

Grech spoke about attracting youth to the party during his campaign, and this will surely be a step in the right direction, however this will not be enough. He will need to focus on bringing in voters from other societal groups.

Robert Abela inherited a party with a strong supporter base, and so some leeway in terms of making mistakes is there. But Grech is not afforded the same luxury, given the dwindling supporter base the PN has.

There is near to no chance that the Nationalist Party can win the next election, but with a new leader it does have a chance to close the gap. Grech’s performance will be under the microscope.

As previously stated, the party will need to create a clear vision for the future, and this would require concrete proposals and not vague rhetoric. The budget is soon upon us, and this could be the ideal chance for the PN to unveil at least a few such proposals to the wider public. The fight against corruption is of the utmost importance, but at the same time a party with no clear proposals will be hard to elect.