A recent leader in Times of Malta on the Nationalist Party was entitled ‘PN may need major surgery’.
Unless surgery works on corpses, the headline sounds somewhat wrong. Surgery, major or mega, can’t manage the trick. A more apt title would have been ‘PN needs Lazarus effect’. Miracle maker needed to revive a relic.
This is my second article in a few weeks about the PN. Some people accuse me of attacking the opposition and its leadership, or lack of, relentlessly. They say the real threat, and what should be my main concern, is Labour and their total takeover of Malta.
The answer to such reasoning should be obvious. That Malta is in dire straits regarding its democratic standing and that the country is in an environmental mess is beyond doubt.
All that and more is due to Labour incompetence, competence at corruption and rewarding the corrupt as well as a slow but steady takeover of state media.
Yet, all these problems are, to a huge extent, the result of a PN in disarray. After three victories at the polls, normality should dictate that the party in power would lose its appeal with the man and woman in the street.
Normally, that is if the PN were a normal opposition party, it would be leading at the polls even if led by an ass. Even against all odds.
When Times of Malta, or any commentator, calls for surgery or, worse, to fix the opposition it is not because they – and that includes me here penning this article – are anti-PN. It’s only to start seeing Malta solve its problems.
No politician can ever have much success in coming close to solving our ills. Come to think of it, not even a magician, miracle-worker or a phalanx of deities could do that.
Yet, ironically, the biggest problem Malta has right now is the PN. The way they are letting all the country’s problems go unchecked, the way they are moving from one disaster to the next is fodder for a masochists’ reunion.
And, secretly, even if they feel invincible, some Labour insiders wish the PN to get back on its feet to challenge the ruling party.
Ironically, the biggest problem Malta has right now is the PN- Victor Calleja
Labour needs a good sparring opponent to hone its uppercuts, to remain trim, ready for proper battles.
For a time, the biggest threat to Labour was the EU with its constant emphasis on the need to respect the rule of law. Even that threat has been overcome.
What should the PN do? Definitely not let the Labour Party get more and more aggressive, powerful and seemingly invincible. The PN, at the moment, sounds and acts like an ant trying to bother a bear.
Surgery won’t cut it. Burying the carcass, also known as PN, is more like it. Or, if the latter is still in its dying throes, finishing it off in what would be the first mercy killing in Malta.
Kill it off and start from scratch. Sell the assets, find a new, more relevant and current ethos, create something that could start rising from nothing to something. The PN is going from little to very little to, soon enough, nothing.
Lately, the only thing of note the leader of the opposition did was to attend a few festas and say how glad he is the season is back to normal after the interruption caused by COVID.
The PN’s strategy should not focus on the election. The only major achievement the PN in its present state can aim for is not to lose by an even bigger margin to the Labour Party.
If from the PN’s ashes something can be built, the future – of course, not the near future – could be slightly rosy, for the country, for democracy. Otherwise, the mighty bear becomes more menacing, more certain of being king of all it surveys.
Victor Calleja is a former publisher.