PN needs to be led by a team, not one person – George Pullicino

The humiliating defeat the Nationalist Party suffered at the polls earlier this month has been subject to numerous newspaper articles, television discussions and blogspots.

The latest to share his thoughts on the defeat was former resources minister George Pullicino.

Writing in his blog, Pullicino said that the PN needs to first identify the reasons which led to the defeat and come up with a programme which brings the party in line with today's society.

"We need to get thinking first. Moreover, we need to rope in people who can do the thinking with us. Firstly we need to identify the reason which led to the defeat. Above all we then need to look ahead, to start rebuilding. This does not mean discarding everything, but we need strong renewal."

Pullicino, elected from two electoral districts, added that firstly the PN needs to decide and determine what should the PN's programme be in today's reality and for the five years ahead. "Where do we want to take the party? How shall we transform the party into a popular party. What are the priorities?"

He added that the party than needs to identify the qualities needed by the persons who can translate the programme in concrete action.
"We therefore need to determine the identikit of the persons who will make up the team. I emphasise the need of a team rather than the leader."

In a veiled criticism of the PN decision to base its 2008 electoral campaign on Lawrence Gonzi's persona, Pullicino said: "The party cannot be built around one person, but around a team. In my opinion we need to have a stronger female presence in the team, and the same goes for young persons."

Pullicino also noted that preferably apart from the leader and the deputy leader, the rest of team should come from outside the Parliamentary group and should have no aspiration to contest elections, to ensure that the persons working within the party can concentrate solely on the party and avoid the distractions of personal campaigns.

Meanwhile, writing in his blog Nationalist MP Michael Gonzi said the "crushing" electoral defeat brought the party to its knees but insisted "the way forwards is actually not so difficult."

Gonzi said that the PN administration "achieved plenty for the country but failed to address middle management issues and basic client focused priorities."
While saying that the reasons for the defeat are numerous, Gonzi highlighted the PN administration's failure to deal with the country's "micro factors."

Stressing that the macro elements where discarded from the electorates line of thought, the MP said: "It was useless promoting the fact that Malta fared better than other European countries in terms of economic strength or that unemployment was at a fair percentage or that tourism had another successfully year, four years in a row."

He added that it was also useless promoting major infrastructural projects, underlining the fact that the PN was voted out of office because of micro factors.

"No one seemed to ask the important question what would have happened if things were the completely opposite, that is economic stagnation, increasing deficit, rising unemployment."
What really cost the PN a fourth successive term was the perception of an incompetent government, Gonzi said.

"It was useless doing house visits and pointing all of the above because the perception was of a failing, tired, corrupt group of people who were only interested in statistics and not the basic needs of the family."

The MP also noted that the continuous perception of a broken party led to a complete distrust in the basic core of the management of this country. "The perception of a klikka (clique) taking over. If each letter of this word has a value in Labour votes you would get a substantial amount add this to the word oligarchy and you would get any even bigger amount."

Gonzi added that the electoral result was also determined by issues which "in theory made sense but in practise where a disaster," listing the water and electricity tariffs hike, the  "insensitive" way bills were issued by ARMS Ltd, the Arriva "disaster," the BWSC Delimara power plant plant saga and the energy dilemma "where people were left believing more in Labour s arguments than Governments policy coupled with a perception of corruption."

Another factor, which Gonzi listed, is the Air Malta restructuring which he argued hurt hundreds of people "not because they were made redundant" but because their stable job was taken away despite being given a golden handshake.

MEPA, the Mater Dei waiting lists, out of stock medication, the divorce issue, gay rights and the hunting issue also featured on Gonzi's list, adding that "all these were craftily taken by Labour with open arms."
Insisting that only history will judge whether the people made the right choice in giving the PN the boot, Gonzi said that the way forward for the bruised Opposition "is actually not so difficult."

"We need to change to get rid of the bad perception. This will be done by getting new people with new ideas and new management skills and restructuring our party from top to bottom. It will not be difficult because we have the people who want this new change and who want to participate. We will be a constructive opposition and will keep the government on its toes. It has promised everything to everyone and we will be there at its heels if it does not deliver.