It was heartbreaking to witness a gentleman, who gave his all for the Nationalist Party, explaining the ordeal he went through at the hands of those to whom he gave his all.

Robert Arrigo is a successful businessman. He never needed politics but politics needed his deep sense of commitment to his party and to the country. Yet, he, like so many others, were cast aside and treated unfairly.

Since the general election, at which the PN got its worst result ever, many have left the party. Others will follow. The politics of exclusion brings only grief and disarray. I experienced that first-hand too.

What Arrigo went through is what many others went through and such shameful behaviour by people who should know better cannot be tolerated any further.

Arrigo kept the party afloat financially when he doubled as deputy leader for party affairs and as the man in charge of the party’s coffers. Media.Link, the party’s commercial arm, was deeply in the red and, painstakingly, he was turning its fortunes around.

He saved jobs within Media.Link and the party. The party employees, and the absolute majority of PN activists, were grateful for his sterling service. Not so the party’s leadership and a handful of others, elected and non-elected officials, including a couple of MPs.

While Arrigo was busy putting a stop to the PN’s financial haemorrhage and securing thousands of votes for the party on the ninth and 10th electoral districts, others were busy putting spokes in his wheels.

It is unheard of that a party’s deputy leader is banned from entering one of the party’s premises: the PN Żabbar club. It is insulting that the man who garners such a massive number of votes from his district is banned from being on stage during a PN mass activity in Sliema, his home town.

If there was a political decision not to allow candidates on stage, this shouldn’t have applied to the party’s deputy leader.

It is shocking that, after these two incidents, no one from the party’s top brass apologised to Arrigo.

For his farewell speech as PN deputy leader, he was allocated an insulting five-minute slot, one minute for each year that he served in the role. He made good use of his time, to the dismay of the party’s top brass. In that speech, Arrigo gave but a hint of what he went through.

The PN has reached rock bottom and, short of any radical changes, things will only get worse- Andre Grech

There was more, much more to say. But the little he said then was enough to make everyone understand what has been happening in the PN recently. It was kept under wraps, until the former deputy leader opened a Pandora’s box.

Adrian Delia, before him, met the same fate. In his case, his leadership of the PN was cut short despite being elected, democratically, by most party members. Delia’s removal cost the PN thousands of votes at the last general election. It would have cost it much more had he not been an election candidate.

For people like me, who stood by the party in good and in trying times, Delia’s removal was the final straw. I could never live at peace with myself in a situation where party members’ democratic vote was unashamedly ignored.

Others met the same fate. Former MP Mario Galea too spoke of his personal ordeal. Galea was a PN stalwart from Żejtun, a Labour Party stronghold. He gave the party his all in his long years of service. At the last general election, he was cast aside by the party leadership and their ‘strategists’.

With Galea gone, and other former MPs and popular candidates too, the PN has hit rock bottom in the southern part of Malta.

Gozo, once a PN stronghold, also turned red. Many traditional PN voters lost trust in the PN and either stayed away from the polls in 2013, 2017 and 2022 or voted Labour.

Gozo’s only hope is newcomer MP Alex Borg. Yet, he too fell out of favour with the PN leadership for speaking his mind and for being loyal to the party’s principles. His vote against amendments to the IVF law a case in point. He has since been banned from the media.

The PN has reached rock bottom and, short of any radical changes, things will only get worse.

The first radical change needed is a change in attitude.

It needs to do away, once and for all, with a deeply ingrained sense of entitlement amply demonstrated by a handful of its MPs and activists who think that the PN is their personal backyard. Their arrogance, backroom deals and a deep sense of hatred towards anyone who dares to oppose them is destroying the Nationalist Party.

No wonder that today the PN is at its lowest, for who will trust a party that made a hell of the life of Arrigo, one of its finest MPs and its very own deputy leader?

Andre Grech is an independent Balzan local councillor.

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