The Labour government has purposely "weakened the moral fibre of the country" by its continuous acceptance of what is unacceptable, and justification of what is unjustifiable, Nationalist Party Deputy Leader Alex Perici Calascione said.

Perici Calascione has been the party's deputy leader for four years now, but last May's general election was the first time that he was elected into Parliament. 

Speaking to The Malta Independent on Sunday, he says that things since then have been "non-stop"- something he says is a good sign, especially considering that the party is in Opposition.

Last May was the PN's fourth general election loss in a row, something that is unprecedented in Maltese political history.  Asked, now that the dust has settled, what the party's post-mortem on the result has been, Perici Calascione said that the loss itself is only half the story.

"How you lose and in what context you lose is the other half of the story," he said.

He said that there were a lot of significant circumstances in the run-up to the election: the fact that it was called almost a year early, that the party had only elected a new leader a few months prior, and the fact that the PN was going up against a machine that wrote "a new interpretation for the meaning of power incumbency" such was its starkness.

"Against this, we had a cloud of losing every election by 40,000 votes, which we heard everywhere we went. While the election was lost, the fact that we managed to break that pattern and go from being extremely difficult to elect to being technically electable is a positive that we can work off of," he said.

"It was a fourth loss, no questions there, but it was different to the three that preceded it.  This time it came with hope still bundled in it," he said. The PN, this time, lost by 21,000 votes.

He said that since then he feels that the party is on the right track, but said that it's his passionate view that the PN's politics shouldn't be defined by the party needing to win but that "for the sake of the country, the party has to win."

"I work less for the PN to be elected because I am an MP and more for the party to be elected because considering the point that this country has reached, change is that only hope that it can have," he said.

He said that the trial by jury related to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia and everything that emerged from it had exposed "a picture of Malta that nobody, irrespective of their political leanings, should be even remotely comfortable with."

"There is a sense of a criminal network which has rested, and for all I can see is still resting, uncomfortably and unacceptably on a bed of political support from the political class and those immediately around them," he said.

Wider voter base

Asked what the party had learned from the election result and on how it can appeal to a wider set of voters, Perici Calascione said that a technical exercise into the campaign itself had been done - but reiterated his belief that the result, against the context to it, shows that the party is on the right track.

He said that in the past there were big differences between the PN and the PL - on topics such as independence or the European Union - but it then became a matter of who can administer best.

"Now it is no longer a matter of who can administer better because there isn't a normal situation to administer.  Now it goes to the core and soul of what this country is," he said.

He said that the PL in government has caused the most damage in the "weakening of the moral fibre of the country."

"I don't mean this from a religious sense.  It's essentially on what is right and what is wrong," he said.

"When you have a government that systematically, by choice, and by political strategy, continues to accept what is utterly unacceptable, continues to excuse what is totally inexcusable, and continues to not just condone but to justify what is totally unjustifiable year in year out, that really weakens the moral fabric of the country and gives rise to frustration, disappointment, people giving up and leaving, and people thinking only of themselves - all wrong sentiments for the wrong reasons," he said.

"I think the PL has weakened society and it's sad to say that they did it purposely.  This level of populism goes beyond sending a cheque home, but it has created a country in which anything goes, where nothing is a problem, and where there are no consequences.  It's inevitable that the chickens will come home to roost and I think that's where we are now," he added.

Asked whether he thinks that the PN needs to adjust its ideology and line of thinking on certain issues in order to appeal to a wider spread of voters, Perici Calascione replied:  "The price that one pays for popularity should never be departing from your essential values."

He said that society changes, but he feels that the key to political support nowadays goes deeper than having a stand on one or two particular issues.

"If a political party just tries to change every time society shifts, it ends up having no backbone. The situation we have in this country is way more serious than a stand on just one issue, and seeking popularity at all costs, bearing in mind that we need to be elected to change," he said.

Perici Calascione will re-contest for post of PN Deputy Leader

Perici Calascione has been the PN's Deputy Leader since July 2022 when he was elected with the backing of 90% of the party's delegates.  Bernard Grech was still the party leader at the time, but Perici Calascione has remained in his post even after Alex Borg succeeded Grech in the party's top role.

One of Borg's party reform pledges was to bring the party back to having two deputy leaders - one responsible for party affairs and the other for parliamentary affairs.  It is a system that the party had first introduced in 2013 but then discontinued when the party statute was amended in 2020.

When asked about the impending change, Perici Calascione said that he is "totally" and "without hesitation" in favour of it.

"Having gone through what it takes to be the sole Deputy Leader during the times of an election, I would have very much loved to have a co-Deputy Leader to share the burden with, as it would have allowed me time to focus on my own campaign and what needed to be done," he said.

Asked whether he will re-contest for his position as Deputy Leader, Perici Calascione said that his name will be on the ballot sheet and that the post of Deputy Leader for Party Affairs would be his preference.

"I was elected Deputy Leader during Bernard Grech's time and remained such since Alex Borg was elected - I believe that I have more to contribute," he said.

A more surprising internal change in the party came about in the past week, with the dismissal of the PN's director of communications Nathaniel Attard.  Asked whether he could shed any light on that, Perici Calascione said that changes within the party at a certain level are confidential by nature and that out of respect for Attard he would not comment about the situation.

Valletta office for Alex Borg

During the party's Independence Day celebrations last month, Borg announced a further change: this time that he would be opening a new office in Valletta and splitting his time between the PN's headquarters and there. 

Perici Calascione described this as a good move, noting that a base in Valletta is important because there are a lot of people who have reached out to the party to meet "but they are still not comfortable doing that at the PN's headquarters".

"The PN is now present at its highest level in the capital city, and I think that in itself is a good statement," he said.

Asked on Borg's remark that the move would take him one step closer to the Castille and on whether this could come across as being presumptuous, Perici Calascione said that he doesn't think he meant it in that way.

"Just as much as the Prime Minister has his meetings at Castille and not that the Labour Party's headquarters where he has an office, it is right for the PN leader as Opposition Leader - once it was an option and possibility - to be present in the capital city, not just to be close to Castille," he said.

Castille connection in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder

On the night that Malta heard the shocking verdict in the trial by jury against Yorgen Fenech in connection with the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia - where Fenech was acquitted of all charges - the PN, which up until that point had not commented on the trial, called a silent protest.

There, party leader Alex Borg said that Caruana Galizia's murder had been "hatched inside Castille" - a remark that earned him applause from those present, but wider criticism, with some saying that Borg had discredited the jury verdict and leaned into the theory offered by Fenech's defence team during the trial.

"Why Castille? Because we commented on the goings on that emerged in evidence - and Castille was mentioned countless times," he said.

"We heard of what was happening there: someone naked in the Office of the Chief of Staff, a gun going off in the presence of the Prime Minister's wife, one of the main actors in the case Melvin Theuma being welcomed through the front door and given a phantom job.  The Castille link shines out as a fact emerging from the evidence.  It is absolutely impossible to ignore it," he said.

Asked whether Borg's remarks made it sound that the murder plan started in Castille, Perici Calascione said that the murder plan was hatched over a period of time with a number of players involved and it was in that sense that Castille had been mentioned.

He backed Borg's statement in full: "There is no way that anyone can refute or ignore the continuous mention of Castille as a reality in all of this despicable tragedy," he said.