The Nationalist Party continues to lose ground.

The election held last Saturday is the third massive defeat for the PN, and each time the distance between it and the ruling Labour Party becomes larger.

Today more than 39,000 votes separate the two largest parties.

In spite of a double change in leadership since 2017, the PN is not seen by the people as a valid alternative to the Labour government, with all its faults and scandals.

The PN obtained 12,000 fewer votes than 2017, and although Labour also received 8,000  fewer votes than it did five years ago, the drop on the PN side is even more significant, as it also means that more traditional Nationalists preferred to abstain rather than give their vote to the party they feel more comfortable with.

Leader Bernard Grech has vowed to stay on, although his leadership is to be confirmed. This is perceived to be an attempt for continuity, given that the PN has gone through the trauma of changing leaders twice in the past legislature.

Whether this continuity, if confirmed, will be beneficial to the party remains to be seen. For one thing, the party needs to show more unity.

In this sense, Nationalist voters did send a strong message to their party, and to individual candidates.

This is because several of the MPs who were in the forefront of the group of so-called rebels who worked to oust Adrian Delia from the leadership did not fare well. People like Jason Azzopardi and Karol Aquilina need to face a casual election to make it to Parliament.

Chris Said was elected without reaching the quota on the Gozo district, while Claudette Buttigieg will have to rely on the gender-quota mechanism to possibly make it to the House of Representatives. Toni Bezzina was elected thanks to the proportional representation mechanism although, in his case, it must be said that the presence of Grech on his district may have taken away votes from him.

Mario de Marco and Beppe Fenech Adami lost more than half of their first count votes when compared to 2017.  Karl Gouder fared dismally in both districts he contested.

Only Stephen Spiteri and Ryan Callus were elected on two districts, with Spiteri having distanced himself from being part of the then so-called rebel group. Callus, however, was the second preferred candidate in both districts he contested.

The other dissidents did not contest.

The way Nationalist voters cast their preference made it clear that they are against people who create division in the party. They want candidates who seek the party’s interests first. They did not like the fact that a democratically elected leader was pushed aside by a group which thought it knew better.

The PN should be encouraged that its supporters elected new candidates, and more will make it to the Parliament chamber when the casual elections are held and the gender-proportion mechanism comes to be.

But it knows that it has a long and arduous road ahead of it in the next five years. It must work hard, come up with a better strategy, and see to it that the younger, fresher MPs are put in the spotlight.

Most of all, it must show unity.

Another election will come round in five years’ time. The PN cannot approach it in the same way that it did the one held last Saturday.