Saving Malta from the mire of corruption and bad governance will be the Nationalist Party’s next mission, new leader Bernard Grech says.
Just as the fight for EU membership had once been the PN’s mission in life, today the party must “save Malta” he told Times of Malta in an interview.
“We need to save this country. Unfortunately, Malta is being ridiculed out there. The PN’s objective is to clean up Malta’s reputation, its image. And the people out there are realising that something needs to be done.”
Grech agreed that this sounds similar to the political mantra of former leader Simon Busuttil, who had led the PN to its greatest ever electoral defeat in 2017. However, he said the former party leader was before his time.
“Simon really worked hard on this. And I really appreciate what he tried to do, to try to make sure that corruption in Malta is wiped out. Perhaps it was too early for people to take it up and understand it, because they were still happy with Labour,” he said.
Now, “the time is ripe”, as the people were really starting to feel the impact of corruption within government.
It was important, Grech added, that the party did not focus exclusively on the issue of corruption and remember to fight for other issues too.
The PN needed a rebrand but this would not come in the form of “cosmetic” changes to name or banner. Instead, Grech said he wants to see the party attract new faces and adopt a fresh approach to doing politics.
Asked how a family lawyer with no political experience expected to lead a group of seasoned politicians, Grech admitted that the question was legitimate.
“It’s not about me wanting to lead but it’s them being comfortable with having me lead them. We are a team. So there is no problem with having less or more experience. We want to use our ideas and our experience collectively.”
Grech conceded that his reported tax problems, which saw him subjected to an audit and put into a settlement plan for unpaid dues, had been a low point.
Characterising it as one of his greatest regrets, Grech said he believed everyone deserved a second chance.
Grech said the PN’s electoral losses in recent years were simply part of a cycle. Everything goes through a cycle in life. “Even if you try climb Everest, you go up, enjoy the view and then go down again. This is what the PN has gone through,” he said.
Grech knows it is a tall order to turn the PN’s last electoral drubbing around, especially with the possibility of an early election. But, he insists, “nothing is impossible”.
"Nothing is impossible, I think we can do it, obviously we have to be cautious, we have to careful, we have to plan and execute." He said he embarked on a plan which considered a general election while the reform of the PN was still in progress.
While he has no fixed margin in mind as a target, he says he wants to improve the numbers significantly.