In the run-up to the last three general elections, the PN, as an opposition party, started on the back foot, as the Labour government had greater public visibility and used public money to ingratiate itself with voters.
Alex Borg was particularly up against it, with few seasoned and promising candidates, possibly including himself, and little public confidence that the party had any chance of winning the last general election. Media management was poor, to say the least. The last electoral campaign provided many examples of PN politicians who caused irreparable havoc to their party because of utterances that they later came to regret. In opposition politics, everyone cannot and should not be allowed to speak on behalf of the party.
Until the next general election, Alex Borg's challenge as Opposition Leader, or his eventual successor's, is to keep his party united and ready to govern if the government loses public favour. That is, they need to be a ready alternative government.
In the meantime, we might be seeing alternative scenarios panning out. Inevitably, though, there's a big possibility that the money will start running dry or the government's mistakes start to pile up. That's when an opposition needs to be in a credible position to persuade swing voters that they are a better option than the government.
Establishing competence is Borg's and the PN's priority now. Borg came to the job with some question marks. On the plus side, his early moves to reinstitute formal policy development processes inside the party signal competence.
Bernard Grech was competent in his own way, leading a defeated and fractious party room through a parliamentary term with little public dissent and no serious challenges to his authority. However, this came at the expense of any real policy agenda, and that contributed to the PN's crushing defeat at the 2022 election.
The more difficult task is to combine competence and vision, something Alex Borg or any eventual successor has to work hard on. He must also appear to have patience for deliberative policy development processes. Furthermore, he has to offer stability, particularly in contrast to six years of PN infighting under, first, Adrian Delia, and then Bernard Grech.
Yet Alex Borg offers the best recent example of an opposition leader successfully balancing competence with vision. It might be argued that his and the PN's vision at the last election was more ambitious than electorally strategic. Still, his political style differentiated him from his predecessors, who were fractious and had little energy for new policy.
He might have appeared awkward in front of a camera but was respected by his colleagues. He courageously tried to sell the electorate on his vision of nationalism, economic prudence, and blue-collar ambition. Still, it wasn't enough.
The PN has now been in opposition for more than 13 years, suffered four successive defeats, and rotated through a series of unpopular and gaffe-prone leaders.
The Opposition is first and foremost about getting elected. Plans for an office mean nothing without getting into government. Five years from now might seem a long time, but there is limited time, money and people to do all the jobs the opposition has to do.
The demands of an opposition to take positions and make hurried promises put great pressure on policymaking. However, the PN should also be thinking about what it actually wants to achieve should it one day find itself in office. Work done in opposition can have a big effect on the future cost and outcomes of policies, how the government is perceived and the likelihood of getting elected. This makes for a constant challenge in balancing day-to-day tactics against longer-term strategy.
For an unprecedented fourth time in opposition, now is a crucial opportunity for the PN to make it a last chance to bring in fresh ideas, hear critical voices and build up relationships. It's vital to make policy more widely known. External engagement can be considered one of the core fundamentals of good policymaking.
The Opposition is highly pressured, with a wide range of roles to fulfil. The kind of work confronting front-benchers ranges from being able to understand the detail of bills and draft amendments to being able to look strategically or politically at an issue, react rapidly and marshal thoughts coherently, let alone deal with the media. Combining that with expertise in a subject area and then having the time to be able to go away and undertake detailed research in an extensive policy topic is a challenge.
Finally, Alex Borg and his party cannot fail to give due consideration to valence politics. There are many issues on which all voters generally agree: everyone wants more family time, good quality education, and affordable housing, for instance. Parties can differentiate themselves on their ability to tackle these valence issues, or they can propose an alternative vision.
To do this, it must conduct itself to persuade the electorate that it could be an improvement on the government of the day. No one will deny that our democratic system works best when there is a change of government at reasonable intervals.
That is why Benjamin Disraeli's dictum that 'no government can long be secure without a formidable opposition' has been proved valid for the health and efficiency of a democracy. Wherever the system of representative democracy has been established, the importance of a healthy, effective, vigilant and principled opposition has been fully realised as something indispensable.