I submit my copy to the editor two days before publication, which means it was written before the PN’s executive committee meeting. By the time you read this, my comments on the events affecting the turmoil in the Nationalist Party may well have been overtaken.
As dire reports gather pace about the possibility of PN splintering into two parties, it is worth recalling that the political implosion afflicting PN has been more than 10 years in the making.
The party has been demoralised and deeply divided since before Lawrence Gonzi’s downfall in 2013. As the PN retreated in the face of successive landslide electoral defeats in 2013 and again under the well-liked but ineffectual Simon Busuttil, it turned in 2017 – in a fit of self-immolation – to an unknown political outsider, Adrian Delia.
Delia carried baggage which Daphne Caruana Galizia was quick to expose. Nevertheless, he was elected by a large popular vote of disaffected members of the party rebelling against a succession of leaders – Gonzi and Busuttil – imposed by the party establishment.
Of all the challenges facing a new party leader, the most important is to avoid being disliked instantly by the voters. Any political leader has only a few months in which to make a positive impact. A major faction within the party, loyal above all to Caruana Galizia, deserted Delia, so he never stood a chance.
For the last three years, it has been downhill all the way for PN struggling to make inroads into the government’s overwhelming lead in the polls.
Delia’s, and PN’s, position has not been helped by increasing evidence of his political (and moral) unsuitability as leader of the party and leader of the opposition.
Despite losing a vote of confidence by the parliamentary party last week, Delia refuses to vacate his post as leader of the party – though I strongly expected his formal removal as leader of the opposition by the President under Article 90 of the Constitution.
In Therese Comodini Cachia, PN appears to have finally struck gold
Unless he can be persuaded to stand down as leader of the party, PN could find itself led in the House of Representatives by a new opposition leader, while the party itself – its administrative machinery, finances and media – continues to be led by Delia. Dual leadership would be a guarantee of electoral and organisational chaos making PN unelectable.
But is the PN’s situation irredeemable? I do not think so. The majority – two-thirds of the parliamentary party – have elected a new leader of the opposition, about whom more below.
My assessment is that Delia will conclude that his position as PN leader is untenable.
Breaking the party in two – with one wing comprising party activists supporting him, while another gravitates around a group of civil activists (shorthand for Repubblika and Occupy Justice) to form a new ‘Real PN’ party – is not the way he will want history to remember him.
Common sense should prevail.
He will strike a deal brokered by party elders and he must depart.
The imperative now for PN is to rally around the new leader. In Therese Comodini Cachia, PN appears to have finally struck gold. She could be the first woman leader of the Nationalist Party. She is, indeed, the first woman leader of any major party in Malta since Mabel Strickland led a rump of the Constitutional Party more than six decades ago.
In probably the least distinguished shadow cabinet in Malta’s post-war history, cometh the hour, cometh the woman. And she is prepared to step into the mire. It takes courage, the most important quality in a political leader, to seize the moment.
But it also takes the political calculation – an indefinable quality which only effective politicians possess – that this is the right time to force her (very) conservative, male-dominated party not only to elect a leader from a younger generation, but also a woman.
Leadership is key. Being the leader of the opposition is the most thankless task in politics. But as a thriving democracy, it is vitally important that the government – especially one which has such a commanding majority as Prime Minister Robert Abela’s – should have an effective opposition to hold it to account in these turbulent political times.
Comodini Cachia’s task is to rebuild the party’s reputation and re-unify its warring factions.
It is abundantly clear that unless there is an end to the bitter internal disunity and the breakdown of discipline, her party’s fate as a major player in Maltese politics will be doomed. She must be given the chance to heal the wounds splitting the party.
Most importantly, she appears to have the personality and determination to do that, and seems capable of inspiring the party by re-instilling discipline and the desire for power.
Her strategic objective is for PN to be seen as Malta’s government-in-waiting. Unless the electorate regards it in that way, she will have failed in her job. She must re-invent PN, develop new policies and win back the trust not just of its core supporters but of the country.
She has to reach out to the electorate at large and demonstrate that a Nationalist government under her leadership would work for the many, not just the privileged few.
We live in an era of volatility in our democratic politics. PN is caught in the crossfire between survival and extinction. Although a PN revival looks implausible right now, in Comodini Cachia the party may well have found the lifeline – the game changer – it needs.