Delia is delusional. He cannot rebuild the PN

Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia would be a perfect subject for a psychological investigation right now (without trying to cast aspersions on mental health…). What I mean is that politically, apart from his denial and inability to read the writing on the wall, it is clear that the former high -flying lawyer is living in a delusional world of his own.

He cannot quite fathom that the whole world around him is collapsing and crumbling, and that he is being abandoned by the people who sustained him and gave him their unflinching support.

He is hanging on just like a besieged sovereign reluctant to acknowledge that his days are numbered.

It appears that Delia has nowhere to go, but also nothing to lose if he goes down with the sinking ship and takes with him the crew, the guests and the string quartet.

Given such trying circumstances, putting him under pressure and leaving him with little room for manoeuvre, to describe Delia as an egotist and self-centred megalomaniac would not be very distant from the truth. He talks of having been elected by the members of the party and insists that only the members can remove him, but since his election his ratings at the polls have been dismal, pathetic, and short of disastrous. His MPs are against him. Enough said.

So Delia is simply unwilling to accept the facts and the realities he faces. Indeed, he is lying when he says he has parliamentary backing.

He told his parliamentary group that he would consider their demands for him to step down. Five minutes later he was telling the press that he would be staying on. He was presented with a declaration by – allegedly – 17 MPs, which if confirmed would represent the majority of the parliamentary group, stating that they no longer supported him; and he reacted to this by saying that he had the support of the majority of his MPs.

He went on TVM saying that he was fully cognisant of the science of surveys and referred to his own party’s surveys when in truth the PN does not carry out any surveys anymore.

He suggested that the MaltaToday survey had got the leadership results between Robert Abela and Chris Fearne wrong when in fact the survey did get it right by putting Abela ahead, in contrast to all the other surveys leaked to the press in the weeks prior to the election.

He claimed that his signature to a legal document which forms the basis of allegations that he set up a tax avoidance structure as lawyer had been falsified, when all the facts show that it was his signature.

He denied being investigated by the FIAU, when in fact he was. More importantly he talks repeatedly of ethical standards in politics, when he applies a different yardstick to himself.

The truth, and this has been said several times over, is that Delia cannot win the hearts of Nationalists, let alone that of the middle-ground. He is a loser.

And he should be the first to understand this reality: in football, a world which he is keenly attuned to as the former president of Birkirkara FC, the success and retention of a coach is intrinsically linked to the victories notched up by the football team as well as the happiness of the players with the coach or manager. Take Mourinho as the prime example (although he did win trophies even with the teams that sacked him) – he fell out with players and administration at Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester United. Or take Man Utd itself… Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho, and now teetering on the brink, Solskjaer – all changes taking place since 2013! You get the drift… the PN’s player-manager has lost too many matches to retain the right to keep on leading this team.

Since his leadership, the PN has recorded defeat after defeat. At a time when the PN should have emerged high in the polls and garnered support, instead it has been losing out. And though policy goes a long way in explaining the PN’s unattractiveness, Delia is the major reason for this electoral calamity.

Delia has no credibility and no chance in hell of rebuilding the party. He thinks that his delivery, affable nature and presence are good enough reasons for him to stay on. He is right on the self-criticism and humility the PN needs. But the catastrophe he presides over gives him no way out of this mess.

Here we are experiencing one of Malta’s most pervasive scandals involving the office of the Prime Minister. And instead of putting country before one’s personal interests, we are spectators to a despondent Opposition that is led by a narcissist.

This is not the time for quiet diplomacy or intelligent discussion in the hope of some breakthrough. If those who cherish democracy love their country in any way, they surely accept the fact that change cannot happen without facing the inevitable.

Nothing is more sacred than the better good and today it is clear that Delia only stays on for his own self-preservation. He has to go.