His predecessor resigned reportedly after a negative opinion poll.

Alex Borg did not come out well from the two opinion polls that were published in the past two weeks.

They were the first following his recent election as PN leader and Leader of the Opposition.

He, and his party, came out rather better in the MaltaToday poll than in the Marmara one a week later but Robert Abela still came out on top in both polls.

Predictably, the party tried its best to gloss over this and Alex Borg was the main item of its news bulletins on most days even when what's reported was not all that important on a national level.

At the same time Borg's competitor in the very recent leadership contest, Adrian Delia, seemed to have been energised, rather than demoralised, by the result and he seemed to be on all channels, all talkshows, all the time. 

A political party is not like a person - a person can change opinion, revert support, etc but a party cannot do that.

Maybe it can be argued that to come to any conclusion after just one poll is unfair on a new leader.

Alex Borg has infused a new spirit into the party, and this is admitted even by those who did not vote for him.

He is young and he radiates youth, especially when he is visited by successive groups of new graduates.

Now whether this can be translated into new faces in the various bodies of the party is still to be seen. One senses a general resistance from people who may have to lose their position to one belongs from the new wave, even while they sing paeans about the new leader.

Nor has Borg's new leadership been translated into new policy initiatives. So what's the benefit of having a new leader?

One also gets the impression that there is no, absolutely no, demand, for a new policy offering. It's more of the same, it could be Bernard Grech speaking with a young voice.

This, I suggest, is the main reason why the party has not taken off in the polls. All that Borg can hope for is to persuade those who did not previously vote to bestir themselves and go to the polling booth, and this can be indeed effective given Malta's small size.

Then again voices of dissent have crept up on some of Borg's public speeches, mainly about issues concerning construction.

Of course, the Labour Party tries its best to portray in the most negative light anything that Borg says and to shift attention away from Robert Abela's many problems.

But even outside Labour one can still find people who question Borg's links to developers both in Malta and even more in his native Gozo.

This reported close relationship with the developers' lobby is colouring the perception of Borg across the board, among supporters and opponents that, he is repeating most Nationalist criticism against the Robert Abela government and thus is not seen as bringing added value. 

So people turn up at any of the PN mass rallies, listen to the speaker, enjoy his thumping on people's back and come back speaking about the turnout rather than about the main issues when they would have so much to say about the issues themselves. 

He does not seem helped by good advisors and does not seem bothered by this. 

Ironically, the biggest help for Borg may have come...... from Robert Abela when he said the election is not round the corner and thus that Borg still has time. Unless he knows that Borg will still not get it right.

Brief historical note 

The end of the Maltese Temple period

Nicholas Vella

The small size and relatively challenging environmental conditions of the semi-isolated Maltese archipelago mean that the area offers an important case study of societal change and human-environment interactions.

Following an initial phase of Neolithic settlement, the Temple Period in Malta began and came to a seemingly abrupt end and was followed by Bronze Age societies with a radically different material culture.

Frontiers Media SA

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