The 2013 general election came, and with it came an historic electoral drubbing for the PN.

"It was a perfect storm," de Marco said when asked when he thought led to this result. He said that the people had seen that the government was struggling to maintain a grip on its one seat majority, and that projected a sense of a lack of unity.

He contended that the PN had also been in government for almost 25 years by that point - with the exception of 22 months between 1996 and 1998 - and people simply "get tired of the same thing."

He also felt that people were seeing the PN "as being out of touch with the social realities then."

"The divorce issue was something where people saw that we were the party which opened Malta to the European realities, with all its openness as a society, but at the same time was wary of accepting these open realities," he said.

The 2009 financial crisis, he said, while handled well, had resulted in the people having a government which spoke of statistics - but he said that those statistics are meaningless if they are not reflected in how people feel, and there were people who were struggling to make ends meet.

Did he expect the eventual election result at the time? De Marco said that while the surveys were against them, candidates get caught up in a bubble amidst the enthusiasm of an electoral campaign. 

"Did I expect it and it to be of such a magnitude?  The honest answer is no," he said.

Following the defeat, Gonzi stepped down as party leader, prompting a leadership election in which de Marco was one of four candidates.  He achieved 38.5% of the vote of the party's councillors in the first round, but was eclipsed by Simon Busuttil, who achieved 50.3%.  At that point, he withdrew from the contest, allowing Busuttil a clear path to party leadership.

"I decided not to go for a second round because I believed that it was not a time of choice, but a time of unity," he said, adding that he had recognised that Busuttil had over 50% of the votes and he had always been taught to believe in the majority.  

Asked whether, with hindsight, he regretted not persisting with his campaign to be leader of the party, de Marco said he has no regrets on how he had handled it.

He would not be drawn on what a PN under his leadership would have looked like: "That's for others to answer," he said, adding that he and Busuttil were quite aligned ideologically.

In the end, de Marco was elected as the party's Deputy Leader together with Beppe Fenech Adami in what he described as an interesting and challenging time, because they were tasked with recovering from an electoral defeat and with reorganising the party and its line of thought.

One of the areas of criticism that he had been thrown at the party at that time was that it was still being run by so-called political dynasties - with a de Marco and a Fenech Adami together with a Mifsud Bonnici (in the form of Paula Mifsud Bonnici) as President of the party's general council.

Asked whether it was a type of criticism which bothered him, de Marco said that in a way it did, but also conceded that it was something that he had actually brought up to Busuttil at the time as something which may not look too good on him.

However, Busuttil "brushed it off, in a positive way", and said that it was a great thing to have. "Would I criticise the PL if they had to have a Boffa or a Mintoff? They have every right to contest and if they get elected, they have every right to be there and be a part of that team," he said.

The rest of the interview about the various stages of Mario de Marco's career can be found in links below

Mario de Marco: 23 years as an MP, health challenges and when 'nobody was a hero' in the PN

Mario de Marco (2) 2003 to 2013: A decade in government and a PM hard done by history 

2014 (4): Mario de Marco's 'biggest disappointment' in politics

2015 (5): Mario de Marco's health challenges

Mario de Marco 2017 to 2022 (6): 'Nobody was a hero back then' 

2026 (7) Mario de Marco on how he had to be hard on himself and what's next