It is probably ‘the dream’ of every Opposition to have such fodder at your beck and call to criticize and use as ammo ‘against’ the Government
With all the looming court cases and inquiries, the fact that their ‘ paladin’ had to resign (and having to deal with new allegations directed against him), the dark clouds that hover on a number of party stalwarts of the Muscat era who are riddled with scandal, suspicion or mistrust and the shock that the Labour Party had to endure in the process, it is strange, almost flabbergasting, that the inroads the Nationalist Party has made are minutest.
True the current Leader of the PL and Prime Minister, Robert Abela deserves recognition for steering the ship in a different direction. He has been addressing a number of important reforms and also managed to detach himself from his predecessor notwithstanding he took the demesne on the pretext of continuity.
Albeit, the Nationalist Party with all that was and is going on should be leading (or at the very least gaining) in the polls comfortably and forcefully. Instead, nothing of the sort. Somehow the Nationalist Party keeps struggling, the non-verbals elucidate discomfort and the dynamics are anything but peaceful. It is as if life has been sucked out of this organization which for decades was a pillar in the defense of democracy, most notably after getting our Independence from the British.
This party under the leadership of Fenech Adami and his team fought tooth and nail for what was right in the 80s. It started by taking back power from the MLP thugs and placing Malta on the path to EU membership positioning this country on an international fora we never thought we would ever be in. Added to this, our infrastructure got the much-needed boost and we started looking like a decent au courant country. Eventually we sat with France, Denmark, Belgium, Germany and all the rest and made it a point to have a voice in major international decisions. Money came in droves to help us modernize.
We were in the Gonzi era. We took a leading role when it came to international humanitarian aid like that following the Gaddafi revolt and also reached out to people in need of safety when the migration debacle started peaking. The Gonzi era saw us weathering one of the greatest economic downturns in history and this country, with no natural resources of its own, got on with it. After that the PN were voted out big time. Probably one of the reasons was that the internal channels of communication were breaking down. Add to that the rebranding of the Labour Party and the rest is history. Instead of embarking on a process of healing and transformation what we got within the PN was more confrontation, people being booted out and a growing sense of grandeur by the select few.
When Busuttil took over he lunged into a scathing attack on the Muscat posse and attempted to highlight the corruption and scandals that were festering our political and social system. Most were so duped (I was one of them) with the important reforms happening on so many levels in the social sector that we didn’t think much of what was happening. The media strategy to discredit Simon Busuttil worked to perfection unfairly making him look asinine and fatuous. In the meantime the party was being eaten up by debt.
Losing is fine and if taken well can become an opportunity. In any case the Labour Party had been getting the stick for as many years as the Nationalists were in power. It is a natural process, its cyclical and everyone gets their turn. But for the Nationalists it wasn’t that straight forward. The moment they were ousted from power, instead of taking this as a prospect to regroup, they imploded and cracks and fissures starting appearing everywhere. The Nationalist Party should have known how the game goes. They have it all in front of them yet hardly any significant inroads are being recorded. Their playbook was and still is in a clutter.
That this country has essentially ended up without an Opposition is alarming. For the third time running the PN will lose an election, a walk-over more than anything else.
This lack of balance in power is allowing the government to, metaphorically speaking, get away with murder; decisions at local level taken indiscriminately; environmental crisis with no response; developers who seem to be dictating the agenda; ‘pro-business’ has turned into ‘just for business’; a degenerating situation in prison; growing poverty and social exclusion; politicians who take the mickey out of their supporters; champagne socialism like we’ve never seen before; lack of wisdom on fundamental issues, like the legalization of cannabis and so on and so forth.
Yet the Nationalists remain unelectable and in a state of comatose.
Let’s be clear. The Nationalist Party shouldn’t be presumptuous and become the resistance but the hub of the resistance. The focus should be that of aligning itself with other stakeholders and entities and not assuming that people need to work within its precincts to be validated. The elitism of the PN in jiffies could be cut with a knife. There still is this arrogance that runs through the blood of many in the Nationalist Party that makes them think they are the answer to what is wrong and not functioning in this country.
On another note, the Nationalist Party should find a way of stopping the internal bickering and divisions. For example, why should the Leader of the Opposition be drawn into a frivolous discussion on how people dressed up to support their candidate during a party activity? What’s wrong with people dressing up for their candidate? Why does the Nationalist Party make it look as if it is all about the Leader and the sum of the parts that make the Party are overlooked?
On the other hand, there is no internal discipline (not of the policing type), no coherence and no strategy that engages people together. It is everyone to themselves. True it has improved these last weeks but still far from synchronized. People decide to come up with scoops and instead of having the party embrace them it becomes a tug of war between the internal structures of the party versus their strongest and most established candidates, Facebook statuses.
Instead of this pandemonium the Nationalist Party should be on the streets knocking on people’s doors, listening humbly and recognising the distance that grew between them and the electorate. They also need to concede that communities have evolved, people have fundamentally changed and the lifestyle and what is important have morphed as well.
The Nationalist Party should focus less on winning an election, which they won’t do anyway, and instead become a voice of those most downtrodden. They should speak on behalf of the homeless, the poor, the socially excluded and ostracized communities, migrants, children, prison inmates, ex-inmates and their families and people who are institutionalized to name just a few.
The Nationalist Party should reach out to organizations, entities, issue groups. What we need is not a party that sits on the moral high-ground but an establishment that looks at concerns, studies them, creates the space to discuss the most complex problems and slowly but surely drive the government to make the necessary transformations. It should be the catalyst of change and a safe space to push the envelope.
The Nationalist Party leader is indeed a nice man however he stops short of inspiring. Regrettably, his passion and zeal do not come across and it is clear as crystal that with all that is happening within the Nationalist Party his energy is being sapped. He should have two deputy leaders who together with the secretary general and strategy team are looking into ironing out these matters rather than having to deal with the nitty-gritty. He is taken up with the backbiting and the ‘dak ħa joħroġ fuq tiegħi’ and ‘dik ħa toħroġ fuq tiegħu’.
If the Nationalist Party does not get a hang of what they are doing and quickly do something about it they will simply be digging a hole they will be unable to come out from – a disaster for the PN, a bigger calamity for the country.