Nationalist Party members are now gearing up for a historic choice between Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech to lead the party.
A lot of the narrative over the past weeks has revolved around party unity and the PN’s ability to present a solid alternative to the Labour Party.
Having toured the country as a party candidate in the last election and still on the road as we speak, I would like to share a few dilemmas which systematically crop up in private discussion and my personal key to their resolution.
First and foremost, in virtually all of the tête-à-têtes on the PN, party members start with objective observations of how we are stuck in a rut, with no progress to report on electoral polls, notwithstanding the gross misconduct of Labour in government.
The inevitable sequence to that assertion is the assignment of responsibility. The process is tortuous and presumably exhaustive, sometimes starting way back in the 1990s, leading up to the EU accession years and then the allegedly ‘infamous’ GonziPN years, to the recent Delia tenure and all the ‘spokes in wheels’ attached to that.
A grossly misleading presumption characterises this process: that the clear identification of the ones at fault will solve all the problems ahead; that no future exists unless we bring all sins committed in the past, whether related to party imagery or individual expectations or party finances, to stark judgement.
This desperate pursuance of tort has all the pointers of a PN nuclear apocalypse, as opposing theories of tort harbour significant support from different party members, hence making this a senseless battle destined for doom.
More worryingly, all the emphasis on past tort distracts and inhibits any talk of a possible, different and united future.
No organisation can sell any of its products convincingly unless it is itself convinced of its ethos. All our past actors are part of our ethos today.
The Nationalist Party in opposition has undergone successive mini phases of distancing itself from recent pasts and building everything from scratch. It is like building a wall by starting from the demolition of an older one, right down to the foundations, but then bringing it down again at the second or third level, to start from scratch.
No good can come out of a political party that cannot embrace its past, both distant and recent. Labour managed that with arguably much less to be proud of.
We must do this as a matter of justice and fairness to all those who gave their all to advance the causes of this nation. We must do this as a matter of urgency if we are to get anywhere close to achieving an electoral majority.
Another common presumption among some party insiders is that the country will look up to the PN ‘when time is ripe’.
This thinking is akin to the desperately romantic beliefs of pre-written destinies of assured grandeur. The theory has it that Labour will soon be past its sell-by date and when that time comes the PN will once again be a natural choice.
While the support for the PN has been plummeting, the need for the PN as an alternative to Labour is on the rise- Peter Agius
Few things can be more dangerous than this mentality in a political party. My experience in attempting to dialogue with floating or switching voters is that barely any of them are ready to switch party support simply because Labour is making mistakes.
The PN has ceased to be the default since 2013. Our politics must convince that we can be better than Labour and not simply hope for the windfall by showing that Labour is bad.
The key to the PN challenges cannot be found in past analogies. Malta and its challenges have changed radically since the last PN success. Any serious enterprise towards a bid to government needs to involve radically new thinking.
This does entail building on past achievements, but with a fundamentally fresh perspective of Maltese society and the channels to reach it.
The challenge of overturning a reported 50,000-vote difference in a position of huge resource imbalance cannot be tackled with the usual methods of men in suits babbling policy on mahogany desks.
We need to reinterpret risk margins beyond old boundaries and consider new avenues so far deemed inappropriate for being informal, unconventional or not serious enough to fit age-old pigeon holes.
All points above may make for a gloomy picture for anyone considering leading the PN. And yet, from small experiences I can tell that there are two elements that can make up for all of the disadvantages.
Firstly, virtually all businesses, workers and youths across this country will tell you how decisions by public authorities are falling short of their ambition and their expectations. The illusion of a country running smoothly on the economic or social front crumbles when you engage with sectorial realities where much more can be done better.
The pandemic put the need for change in certain sectors in a starker perspective. The point here is that while the support for the PN has been plummeting, the need for the PN as an alternative to Labour is on the rise. It is now ‘simply’ a matter of responding to it.
This must be done sector by sector. While we need to have a strong national narrative, this will not suffice to address the myriad of specific issues where the PN needs to show new leadership by listening, understanding and then responding to sectorial needs with sectorial solutions.
A second cause for optimism is that the stark imbalance with Labour is itself a powerful motivator of souls around a common battlefront. Labour’s negligence on the justice front, the rampant corruption and its abuse of media freedom to the extent of handpicking PBS schedule and board are just a few of the incidents provoking a growing anger among several parts of the electorate.
That anger is a precious emotion. If well handled it can be channelled into a positive political drive. The need is there, the energy is there, all that is needed now is the focus.
Peter Agius is an MEP candidate and EU expert.