Now is not the right time for Roberta Metsola

Recent surveys show that Robert Metsola is the most popular political personality among PN supporters. For quite some time she has led the ‘Sunday’ polls ahead of Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech.

Her popularity has been high since that gentlemanly clarion call by Robert Arrigo, “Please help us Roberta”, after that dismal election result in March 2022.

PN supporters on the Granaries waiting for Roberta Metsola to address the Independence mass meeting. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Perhaps few PN supporters are of the opinion that the “party” is relatively more important than the “leader”. Sooner or later, leaders are bound to pass on the baton but the party will stay on, if founded on sound principles and good faith.

The party has to be always ready for a replacement of the leader as a natural evolution.

It is, therefore, not the best policy to anoint someone as the person sent by providence at the right moment. Metsola may only be the comfortable solution to the present crisis.

The history of the main parties in the EPP bears this truism. Aznar in Spain was a great politician but, once he resigned,  there were others to take his place without adorning any of them with a special halo; Kohl was a politician of international stature in the CDU but, once his time was past, there was Merkel and, after Merkel, there is Merz.

In local politics, Edward Fenech Adami passed the mantle to Lawrence Gonzi who was led astray by over-enthusiastic party consultants who coined that unfortunate slogan, “GonziPN”, thus belittling and, to some extent, bedevilling the party.

Shall we, in the near future, be having a “MetsolaPN”? Some attitudes of people within the PN show that the party is running headlong into that risk.

Metsola may turn out to be a good leader but to ordain her, at this point in time, as la donna della providenza might, in the long run, turn out to be counterproductive.

Joseph Psaila – Victoria