Family values? People’s party? Please tell me you’re joking

I have tried not to take an interest in the forthcoming PN leadership contest, I really have. But, damn it, they just won't let me.

Who? The little people, of course. You know, the ones who hide underneath the sofa, or behind the fridge (and occasionally in the broom cupboard - which might explain why I also have an irrational fear of clean floors) and who only come out to tell me what to write... and even then, only on the rare occasions when I am stuck for words.

Today, not only have the little people instructed me in no uncertain terms me to write about this particular contest... but they even insist that I have a moral obligation to try and influence its outcome, too.

No, of course I don't think they're right. As it happens I don't think they even exist. But I have to concede that on this occasion, the little and probably non-existent people do put up a very convincing argument indeed. And it goes like... this.

The PN lost the last election - Oh wait, maybe you hadn't heard that yet... in which case, um, sorry to have accidentally pooped on your parade - by a margin of 36,000 votes. A significant proportion of that already enormous margin (I am told somewhere in the region of 17,000) is made up of people who had previously always been considered "traditional Nationalist voters". That category happens to include me, myself and possibly also I... even though all three of us didn't vote PN in 2008, either.

But in all previous elections? All the way back to 1992? Ah, those were different times, different climes, and back then it made sense to close an eye at the PN's many faults - not least, a hugely worrying obsession with religious concerns of the most parochial and archaic kind imaginable; as well as a ghastly tendency to pry into people's sex lives, to pontificate about 'morality', and to generally behave like the proverbial 'ass in the hole' - while pretending not to notice an increasingly clumsy laissez-faire attitude towards governance and administration, which culminated in tragic fiascos like Arriva, the energy failure, the corruption scandal, the endless promises of projects which simply never materialized, etc.

This made sense because the PN, for all the evidence of a deep-seated sanctimoniousness that sits ill with politics in countries which are not Saudi Arabia or Iran, was nonetheless pointing in the right direction. Unlike the erratic and increasingly schizophrenic Labour Party at the time, it had a very clear idea of where it wanted to go, and more importantly, take us with it.

We now know, however, that that was more or less the extent of their 'cunning plan'. Looking back at the PN since 2004 (when its European aspirations were finally crowned) and... clearly they had never given even half a thought to phase two of the operation. What are we going to DO once we get ourselves accepted as EU members? And we all know how it went over the next 10 years, which takes us all the way back to how this whole thing started: the PN lost by 36,000 votes, etc.

This brings me to the crux of why the little people, despite not actually existing, may even be onto something here. As you may or may not recall, the Nationalist Party recently commissioned a report to identify exactly where everything went horribly wrong before this particularly election. (They did the same thing in 1996, too - though whether they went on to actually read that report is rather debatable).

Funnily enough, this time round nobody bothered asking me - still less myself or I - for my own opinion in the matter. And yet, for a change, my opinion on this topic, along with those of the rest of the 17,000, is of immediate and quite frankly undeniable relevance to the question being asked.

To put the matter succinctly: the PN lost the last election because people like me, myself and I didn't vote for it this time round, as we have in the past. And yes, granted: there were around 17,000 of us, so I imagine there must also be around 17,000 reasons why we all individually voted the way we did.

But this only means that all 17,000 of those reasons - including mine, for what it's worth - must be taken into account if the PN is going to get itself back in the driver's seat any time soon.

And of course that is exactly what is NOT going to happen. We already know, for instance, that the report commissioned to found out why they lost will not even be concluded in time for the May 4 election - and for this reason alone, I can predict, even from now, that the PN will simply not learn any lessons from that defeat.

Instead it will merely repeat the same mistakes that made the party unelectable in 2013: you know, insisting it is always right about absolutely everything, even when it was very manifestly and very emphatically WRONG; and setting itself up on a pedestal of moral superiority, even though we can all see the maggots with our own eyes, writhing in and out of that party's many open and festering wounds.

So unless Labour screws up royally in the next five or so years (as, let's face it, it has a rather nasty habit of doing on the rare occasions where it actually finds itself in power) there is simply zero chance of the PN winning back enough support to even pose a serious challenge in 2018.

Or maybe there is a small chance - very remote, true, but not entirely impossible - that the incoming leader might actually be someone who is offering something slightly different from the tried-and-tested formula that failed so utterly and so spectacularly last month.

Sadly, however, that prospect is not looking very likely. At the time of writing this, there are only three candidates to speak of in the race. [Note: no offence or anything, but I am deliberately leaving Raymond Bugeja out of the equation, for two reasons. One, like Manuel in Fawlty Towers, "I know naaa-thing" about him whatsoever; two, I honestly believe there's more chance of the job going to Justin Bieber's monkey than to Raymond Bugeja: if nothing else because everybody knows Justin Beiber's monkey, but... who the heck has ever heard of Raymond Bugeja? 'Nuff said.]

This leaves us with Simon Busuttil, Francis Zammit Dimech, and - throwing his hat into the ring at the eleventh hour - Mario de Marco. And instantly the enormity of the problem swings into view.

Of the three realistic candidates, the first two (Busuttil and Zammit Dimech) are saying exactly the same thing - and all things considered, it just happens to be the very worst thing they could possibly be saying under the circumstances.

Busuttil sums it up rather neatly with his observation that "While cherishing family values, the party had to respond to today's realities". Zammit Dimech expands the same theme with: "we need to go back to our roots in order to renew".

Hmm. OK, allow me to open both these gentlemen's eyes to how these words will be interpreted by the very people they should be attempting to lure back to the fold. We (please note that the plural refers not only to 'me myself and I', but also to quite a few of the aforementioned 17,000 former Nationalist voters) don't want any more of your fake Christian morality rammed down our throats, thank you very much. For this is what we understand by 'family values' - which under scrutiny turn out to have little to do with 'values', nothing to do with 'family'... and everything to do with bigotry, ignorance, intolerance, and sometimes even undisguised hatred.

Examples? Why did the PN (in the name of 'family values', no less), put a single woman through a seven-year legal ordeal just to try and deny her the right to get married? Is that the sort of thing you think endears your party to those 17,000 voters? I can assure you it does not. Nor does stamping your feet and insisting you were right about divorce. Nor does trying to incriminate and even imprison people for writing things you happen to dislike. Nor does arresting people for dressing up as priests and nuns at Carnival. Nor does allowing your government to be hijacked by Opus Dei.

Nor does ______ (fill in with your own example of typical Christian Democratic bullshit).

As for the idea of becoming a "people's party" - well, has it not occurred to you that this is the exact same terminology that underpins the 'People's Democratic Republic of China' (here and there varying to Eastern Germany, Belarus, Kazakhstan, etc.)?

And besides: how the hell do you expect to be taken seriously with your claims of 'placing people at the centre of your policies'... when you've already made it abundantly clear that you don't actually give a gadfly's testicle about what people think of your policies anyway?

The same can be said for Zammit Dimech's claims to want to "rediscover the party's roots". Sorry Francis, but why should people like me - and do bear in mind that it's my vote, among others, that you should really be angling for - want the PN to return to its former identity as a proto-fascist satellite of Mussolini, whose entire existence (up until the end of World War II) was to keep fascist propaganda alive in Malta?

Those are your party's roots, in case you were somehow unaware of this. So do you really think it's such a good idea to dig up all that, when what you should really be talking about is how best to reinvent that party's identity to make it less scary and uninviting to the 17,000 people who walked out on it on March 9?

I'll leave you two to ponder all that, and turn my attention to Mario de Marco.

Here the dynamic changes considerably. De Marco is the only one saying anything different and remotely interesting (remember I'm not counting Bugeja) in this race. I for one was struck by this quote - "We must reflect society's needs and not expect society to reflect theirs" (even if the second part is admittedly gobbledygook).

But here at least is one aspirant who actually understands what a political party is. Unlike the other two, he doesn't expect us to have to adapt our own lifestyle aspirations for the benefit of a party that has resisted social change for the past three decades. He understands that it should be political parties which adapt to the changing realities, and not vice versa.

So far so far good, and there is more. De Marco has already aligned himself with the type of party people like myself actually want to represent us in parliament. He reformed the censorship laws which had previously threatened authors and artists with prison.

His reaction to the divorce referendum result was completely unlike that of the old guard, and most important of all, he is only one of the three who is talking about 'opening up' the party to different and hitherto unwelcome views.

This automatically makes de Marco by far the most attractive option for the 17,000 dissenters; but paradoxically, for much the same reason it also seriously dents his chances to actually get elected.

This because the same promise of 'change' might make him rather unpopular with the 900 councillors who will take the decision. After all, the same 900 councillors will surely be thinking of their own survival in the 'new' PN; and given a choice between 'continuity' and 'change', they will surely choose 'continuity'.

If this happens, well... I will choose continuity, too. I will simply continue to discount the PN as a serious option (unless, as mentioned earlier, I am left with absolutely no choice) because, damn it, I've already been through 10 years of po-faced morality shovelled down my throat, and I didn't like it one tiny bit. And now that we know the full extent of the financial disaster left by the PN when it vacated government (a possible 3.5% deficit, for crying out loud) I can no longer trust them even on the one area which they have always claimed as their 'strength'.

There is little doubt in my mind that most of the 17,000 outcasts will feel the same way. So the choice facing the PN's 900 councillors on May 4 is actually very simple. Do you want to have a realistic stab at power in five years' time? Or do you want to just concede to Labour from now, and wait another five or possible 10 years in Opposition?

And that's about it on this particular subject from yours truly. But of course, please don't hesitate to completely ignore my advice, and insist that you are right about everything while everyone else is wrong (which is after all what you have always done in the past).

Just don't come crying to me afterwards, that's all...