It will be another long, hot summer for the Nationalist Party.

For the third time in less than a decade, it will spend it finding a new leader to take it through to the next election.

Last Tuesday, Bernard Grech resigned the post to offer, in his words, "the best solution" at this point in time. Grech had replaced Adrian Delia in 2020 after a summer of internal turmoil spearheaded by a group of MPs who had never accepted Delia as their leader. Delia had succeeded Simon Busuttil in 2017 after the latter resigned following an electoral defeat.

Today's situation is different from the other three but, nonetheless, it confirms that the party remains in disarray in spite of having 12 years in Opposition in which it could have regrouped to present itself as a valid adversary to the incumbent Labour government. Busuttil did not manage, Delia found too many internal obstacles to make it, and Grech did not live up to the expectations of those who worked to put him there.

Election after election, and survey after survey, the PN remained in deep arrears when compared to the Labour Party, despite the myriad scandals and wrong decisions taken by the administration. The Panama Papers scandal, the assassination of a journalist and the resignation of a Prime Minister did not sway the pendulum away from Labour. And, when Robert Abela took over from Joseph Muscat, the PL remained in full command although, month after month, it faced one crisis after another mostly as a result of its lack of good governance.

Last year, when the local council and European Parliament elections showed that the PN had somewhat bridged the gap, it was thought that the party was on the right track. This was not the case, as since then the difference between the two parties widened sharply again. The last straw was last Sunday's survey on MaltaToday, which gave the PL a 39,000-vote lead, incidentally the same margin between the two sides in the last general election in 2022.

Which means that the PN went back to square one.

Added to this, Grech's popularity was never as high as that of Prime Minister Robert Abela, and in a country where voters by and large give great importance to party leaders before casting their preferences, this put the PN at a great disadvantage.

Grech's resignation was not a surprise. In the past weeks, questions were even put to the Prime Minister as to whether he was considering calling an early election if Grech resigned. Now that Grech has taken that step, the ball is in the Prime Minister's court. Labour's term in office expires in two years, but Abela might take the opportunity of an Opposition which is again trying to find its feet and take the country to the polls much earlier than that.

Whatever decision Abela makes, the PN has the task of electing a leader who will give the country a strong Opposition that it deserves.