The Nationalist Party needs to fix its way of delivering its message as its ideas are not reaching enough people, one of its leading young MPs believes.

“We have the ideas, but we need to fix our marketing,” Darren Carabott said.

“The quality of debate during our parliamentary group meetings is phenomenal. But our message is not reaching everyone.”

Carabott serves as the PN’s Public Administration and Local Governance spokesperson and also chairs parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. He was elected to parliament for the first time in 2022, having spent the prior 10 years as a local councillor.

“We need to change our messaging. We have the content,” Carabott told radio host and academic Andrew Azzopardi as he rattled off a list of policy documents that the PN has produced over the past year.

Carabott was being interview on 103 Malta's Heart. 

The PN has been in the doldrums for over a decade, having failed to win an election since its 2008 general election victory. It lost the 2013, 2017 and 2022 general elections by ever-increasing record gaps, lost an MEP seat and also saw several local councils flip to Labour. 

A Times of Malta poll published last week indicated that the PN has so far been unable to capitalise on accelerating disillusionment with the ruling Labour Party. While Labour has shed thousands of votes, the PN’s prospective share of the electorate remains stagnant.

The poll also indicated that PN leader Bernard Grech is struggling to win over voters, with his trust rating unchanged over the past five months. With a trust rating of 3.7 out of 10, Grech remains less popular than his rival Robert Abela and his trust rating dropped slightly among people who said they voted PN last election.

A separate survey carried out by Malta Today was more encouraging for the PN, finding that they have edged ahead of Labour. That poll, unlike the Times of Malta one, did not take into account voters who said they are undecided.

Speaking on Saturday, Carabott insisted he had full faith in the PN leader and believed he could win the next general election.

“His ratings are improving,” he said of Grech.