Year after year, election after election, it’s not getting better for the Nationalist Party.

Actually, it’s getting worse.

In normal circumstances, a party in opposition always manages to eat into the lead built by the party in government. It happens because the party in government is more open to mistakes than a party in opposition, and this is punished by voters. A party entrusted with the administration of a country has a tougher role than that of a party which acts like a watchdog. It’s easy to criticise, much harder to implement.

So something must be intrinsically wrong with a party that loses an election with the heaviest of margins ever; then, in opposition, loses a second election with an even bigger disadvantage and, still in opposition, goes on to lose for the third time and, again, faring worse.

All this in spite of having a party in government which more often than not is embroiled in embarrassing situations involving individual members, or comes under the spotlight on the international stage for the wrong reasons, gets Malta grey-listed and changes leader after he is named as man of the year for corruption.

What is wrong with the Nationalist Party? Why does it continue to lose support? Why does the majority still prefer a Labour government and is unwilling to give the PN a chance? And will the PN manage to be more convincing in five years’ time?

That half a quota

Time and again, it has been said that the PN’s debacle started with a victory, that of 2008, when it won the election with a margin of 1,500, or half a quota.

That was enough to spark a revolution within the then losing Labour Party, while the PN’s five years in government were one of turmoil, not only because of the economic crisis and the events in Libya, but also as a result of the internal difficulties it faced with the divorce referendum, weak one-seat majority and financial woes.

From that election onwards, the PL has amassed victory after victory, while the PN spiralled into chaos in spite of three changes in the leadership – from Lawrence Gonzi to Simon Busuttil, to Adrian Delia and more recently to Bernard Grech.

Since losing the seat of power in 2013, the PN never really gave the impression of being a party ready to govern again. Not when Busuttil was fighting corruption, not when Delia took over but was never accepted by the majority of the parliamentary group, not when Grech was helped by dissident rebels to take the reins of the party.

All throughout these nine years, the PN has continued to be perceived as a fragmented party, one in which an elitist class believes it has some right to lead – both party and country – while the other side fights for change but finds resistance.

 

Liberal vs conservative

Many Nationalist voters did not bring themselves to vote Labour last month. But many of them stayed at home, largely because they no longer identify themselves with the party they have always voted for.

The PN has found itself in a quandary. It realised that it needed to become more progressive in its ideas and, after its fiasco on the civil unions law in 2014, tried to move with the times and become more liberal. Yet, this meant that it had to cross swords with its more conservative faction, which was not too happy with the way things were developing.

In trying to please both sides, the PN ended up pleasing neither. Whereas Labour found it much easier to convince its grassroots on the way forward – the follow-the-leader mentality is more predominant on the Labour side – the PN was facing a tug-of-war between one faction that wanted to emulate Labour and another that wanted the party to stick to its traditions.

Yet ideology was only one part of the internal trouble the PN was faced with in the last nine years, and is still facing now.

The rift that emerged soon after Delia was elected leader – via the first ever election which involved all party members, an idea promoted and implemented by his predecessor Busuttil – grabbed more headlines. And it ended, after two years of toing and froing, with Delia being pushed aside while the preferred candidate of the so-called rebels, Bernard Grech, taking over.

Regeneration

In all this time, the PN failed to regenerate itself. Young politicians with fresh ideas were reluctant to join the party and those who did had to face the older generations who, in spite of being kicked out in 2013, were still powerful within the party structures. At least, some of these youngsters continued to fight for a place and they have now been rewarded with a seat in Parliament. Yet, out there, the PN is perceived to be a party of the past, largely because those who lost in 2013 still wield power in the corridors of Pieta.

The PN’s voters have realised that there is a need for change. Through voting new candidates into the House of Representatives, PN supporters sent a strong message that there needs to be a renewal within the party.

Most of all, the PN voters also made it clear that they do not want to see more internal trouble in the party. They voted against those who, when the Labour Party was going through its own upheaval of changing leadership for reasons we all know, chose to pursue their own interests, rather than unite against Labour and gain some political ground.

As a result of this, Labour could go through the leadership changes more smoothly than the circumstances of the time should have allowed them to, while the PN’s ordeal dragged on, creating a wider division that became harder to mend. In a nutshell, Labour’s trauma should have been bigger, but the so-called PN rebels’ behaviour overshadowed it, which meant that the PN continued to lose credibility and trust at a time when it should have taken advantage of the goings-on within Labour.

PN voters showed that they will no longer tolerate this. Candidates who were in the forefront of all the dissent against Delia were not given the same support they had been shown in the past. Some chose not to contest out of their own free will, but those who did struggled to make it, or need a casual election.

We will know whether they will make it to Parliament on Tuesday, when the casual elections to replace PN candidates elected on two districts will be held.

Whatever the outcome, it is hoped that they have now realised that no one is bigger than the party, although one has doubts about this given their ego. People who speak about humility and being humbled are normally the ones who see themselves as top class, and believe that they are central to the project, whatever that may be. Time will tell whether they have understood the message that the people gave them with their vote.

The way ahead

What the PN needs now is to regroup. We have already seen some developments.

Leader Bernard Grech has said that he intends to seek to retain the party’s reins. If this happens, it will mean that the party would have avoided the trauma of yet another change of leadership. Since 2013, the PN has changed leadership three times, as many as it had done in the previous half century.

But this continuity will be beneficial only if Bernard Grech shows a stronger hand, especially when it comes to managing what happens within the party structures. In his first two years as leader, Grech seemed to act out of gratitude to those who put him there.

Now that he has led the party to an election, and we have turned the page, Grech should be more forceful in his leadership. He should adopt a no-nonsense approach even to the slightest tiff. His biggest task is to unite the party and one must say that it is not an easy job, given that the wounds have been allowed to fester.

The Nationalist Party will also have at least one new deputy leader, after Robert Arrigo said that he will not seek re-election. This is the first big test for the party, as its choice will give a clear indication of where it wants to go. Choosing someone “from the past” will not be the ideal way forward.

Arrigo’s loyalty, experience and determination will be lost, but now the PN has the opportunity to show the country that it has the intention to move on, in the right direction.