The PN grassroots strike back

It would be short-sighted and superficial if one were to interpret lats week’s election results as just a widening of the gap between the votes for Labour and those obtained by the Nationalist Party.

In actual fact, despite an increase in the number of voters in the electoral register, both parties got fewer votes than they had garnered in the previous election. Labour lost some 8,000 votes compared with their tally five years ago while the PN got some 12,000 votes less. The gap widened not because Labour’s popularity blossomed, but because the PN lost more votes than Labour did.

Anyone who is in his right senses cannot but conclude that the disgruntlement in the PN’s grassroots was the result of the infighting within the PN parliamentary group that for some three years concentrated on the choice of Adrian Delia as party leader – a choice with which some openly disagreed – rather than on building a united front against the Labour Party administration, an administration that ended up doing more harm than good when its standards of decency vanished into thin air.

Labour changed their leader and started on the way to recovery. And instead of taking advantage of the turmoil in the Labour Party when Joseph Muscat was forced by a majority of his own Cabinet to resign, the PN parliamentary group short-sightedly pushed to get rid of Adrian Delia.

One must first realise why and how Adrian Delia became PN leader. He was picked as the candidate from outside the clique that mattered within the PN. The grassroots could not stomach a second humiliating defeat – one under the PN led by Lawrence Gonzi and another under the PN led by Simon Busuttil.

The grassroots felt they were being taken for granted and the PN was just following a new line that – for many of them – was irrelevant and did not reflect their thinking.

This is a game where perceptions are actually more important than facts. The PN’s old guard can always say that they were correct because Adrian Delia was not fit for purpose as a PN leader.

But they ignored the fact that for the grassroots this was almost irrelevant. The old guard – also referred to as the establishment – then went on to push a most savage and unethical campaign to oust Adrian Delia, irrespective of the feelings of those who chose to elect him.

They did not realise that many would logically ask on how they will treat their political adversaries when in power, if they were ready to act in such a manner against one of their own. If this was the way they treated their own leader, how would they treat any switchers who decide to go back to the PN?

In spite of Delia’s election as PN leader, one MP openly said he would not recognise Adrian Delia as his leader – which actually means that he refused to accept what the Party’s card-carrying members had decided!

Can the PN grassroots forget the MPs who even went to the President officially – and unconstitutionally – seeking to remove their party leader from being Leader of the Oposition?

During this ugly turn in the PN’s history, unelected NGOs – such as Repubblika – became the tail that wagged the dog. Yet Repubblika’s policies and vision did not actually coincide with what the PN’s vision should have been, thus continuing to alienate a hefty part of the PN grassroots.

Of course, Repubblika had every right to believe what it believed and every right to carry out the actions it took. But since it was not a political party and refrained from turning into one, it should have realised that its actions were, in the long run, damaging the PN more than damaging the Labour government. The support it got from one side of the PN divide made things worse and those in the PN who were in disagreement with Repubblika’s tactics became more and more disgruntled.

Ousting Delia after an unethical and abusive campaign to remove him was just the icing on the cake.

Bernard Grech could not clean this slate in the short time he was PN leader, even though his personal relationship with Delia was above board – at least perception-wise. But the damage had been done and many supporters who were disgusted with the PN’s internal antics would not forget them. As far as I know, the PN made no positive actions to lure them back, thus reinforcing the idea that they were being ignored even by Bernard Grech.

As I was entering Valletta last Tuesday, a man whom I knew as a Nationalist stalwart in the south of Malta came up to me and told me: “What did I tell you?”

In the conversation that ensued, he explained why he and many others did not vote, commenting that there was so much anger among PN grassroots that some had even voted Labour!

Have those who have wrought so many problems within the PN taken their lesson?

I should hope that they have – but I seriously doubt it.

A new Cabinet

Last Wedesday the Prime Minister appointed the new Cabinet.

The list includes some new faces and excludes some old ones. What strikes me – as one goes through the list – is that some of those who were openly in support of Joseph Muscat in the past were left out.

I do not think that this is just a coincidence, of course. Muscat’s influence on the new Cabinet has been drastically shrunk. It is obvious that this is Robert Abela’s way forward.

Abela’s is no easy task. Muscat still enjoys the support and approval of a hefty part of the Labour supporters, mostly at grassroots level. During his spell as Prime Minister and during the election campaign, Abela has been consistently ignoring Muscat’s existence, let alone his influence.

Abela’s task to clean Labour from Muscat’s legacy of corruption and misdeeds is not an easy one, but the set-up of the Cabinet he opted for, indicates that he intends to make important inroads in this direction.

Incredibly, Labour is making efforts to redeem itself, while the PN seems stuck in a whirlwind that is not allowing it to change its course.