After the 1981 election Dom Mintoff was a threat to democracy in Malta. He had as opposition leader a man who was as determined and strong willed as he, which made politics harsh.

Fortunately the old man was big enough to know there was a line drawn beyond which he should not go. He did not cross it, though it was close.

Today, the threat to democracy is the Nationalist Party. It is lost in the wilderness, has become so weak that Labour in government is making hay as if it is sending it to Egypt for the bricks the Hebrews made with it. It is not good for a government to have so weak an opposition that it can steamroll over it. How can a one-legged opposition hold the government accountable?

If Mintoff was to blame for Malta's state after the perverted result the 1981 election gave, leading the PN to fight tooth and nail against the distortion, the PN today has no one to blame but itself for its parlous state.

It seems to have lost its way, it is all darkness. It seems the party's old guard decides policy, the leader does not seem to have a final say. A case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, to put it simply? And perhaps Grech is not the stuff that party leaders are made of.

In Richard Cachia Caruana, Eddie Fenech Adami had a Rottweiler for a personal assistant. RCC, as he came to be known, even had the effrontery to tell ministers’ wives what to wear for particular occasions.

What does Bernard Grech have today to assist him?  - a callow radio experimenter. Perhaps that is all that the impoverished and indebted party can afford. But Grech needs someone who can stand up to the likes of Beppe Fenech Adami and Jason Azzopardi, who thinks he is God. Unfortunately Grech himself cannot do that.

Bernard Grech can't be blamed for what is happening. His problem is he is too weak to fight the old guard, he is in debt to the party establishment for installing him leader after they kicked out a party leader, Adrian Delia, who had been democratically elected by the party's membership. Delia was not to the old guard's liking.

Long standing party MP Mario Galea is not contesting the coming election. He said PN members, including MPs, had created hell for him, even referring to his mental problems, according to reports. Which shows the state the PN is in.

Three other MPs are also bowing out, not because of age, because all are young. They must have had enough of the infighting, which apparently is ferocious.

The party has also had a haemorrhage of other representatives, on local councils for instance, and candidates who had been aiming to contest the coming election but have bowed out.

The PN's problems are like a tsunami which threatens to send them to the deep. Robert Abela has no race to run, except perhaps to try and beat Joseph Muscat's record wins at the polls.

Eddie Fenech Adami was party leader for 27 years. In the 18 years since he left in 2004, the PN has had four leaders - Lawrence Gonzi, Simon Busuttil, Delia and Grech. Labour, too, has had four leaders since Mintoff bowed out. Alfred Sant, who succeeded Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, won the 1996 election against all the odds. But Mintoff torpedoed his premiership.

The PN have been short on ideas, shouting themselves hoarse about corruption, as if in government they were a beacon of integrity. They seem to forget that people have long memories in such matters.

Their problem is that corruption or no corruption, everyone today is having a lick at the ice cream. In their time Gonzi gave his cabinet a €600 per week increase, and kept that secret even from his MPs and his party. That, too, is a form of corruption.

The problem with the NP is that though they try to hide their mud from everyone's view, everyone today sees them as the party of the diktat. That is why they are losing so many candidates.

They used to accuse Mintoff of that. But Mintoff ran a largely united party, compared to the PN's old guard hold of the reins, which is strangling it.

It must be the reason that is making so many leave the party, not by switching allegiance, but by withdrawing themselves from standing for the party. It might leave the PN short of credible candidates to stand for election.