[WATCH] Busuttil takes comfort in his Pyrrhic victory

Simon Busuttil on Dissett (PBS)

POINTS FROM THE RENO BUGEJA INTERVIEW

• Busuttil will not call for a vote of confidence in his leadership or commission a report on the electoral loss

• He is proud of his achievement to clinch a third seat

• He says the Prime Minister has yet to consult with him on the nomination of Karmenu Vella to the European Commission, but has not declared himself of whether he is in favour or not of Vella’s nomination

Simon Busuttil may have taken a battering at the European elections, but his defiance in the face of the PN’s worsening fortunes was not dented one bit.

Buoyed by having snatched the PN’s third seat at the EP elections from the jaws of sure defeat, Busuttil told PBS head of news Reno Bugeja on Dissett that he had achieved what he had set out to do at the start of the campaign – perhaps not getting voters to give Joseph Muscat “a yellow card” but securing parity in Malta’s representation inside the European Parliament.

“It’s the first time the PN has elected three MEPs in 10 years. This was my aim, and I achieved it.

“The votes we got were disappointing,” Busuttil said of the PN’s measly 40%, which hardly bothered the popularity Muscat has enjoyed since winning the 2013 elections with an unprecedented nine-seat majority. “But it removes nothing from the importance of the six MEPs who were elected. Labour had four seats, now it has three; the PN had two seats, now it has two.”

Clearly, Busuttil was intent on highlighting only his Pyrrhic, three-seat victory, rather than the 30,000 vote loss he suffered on an election that he also turned into an opinion poll between the two party leaders.

“That is the end result… three seats each. The Prime Minister said this was a historic result. Indeed it was because we now have three seats. Am I satisfied with the votes we didn’t get? No, I am disappointed, and the votes show that the PN have yet to work on becoming once again the natural party for the Maltese.”

Busuttil again refuted suggestions that the MEP results were worse than the 2013 general elections, when Labour was unburdened by its governmental blunders of the first year.

“I didn’t say that we would win by votes… we started off with minus 36,000 votes. And I am proud that we have now won a third seat, just one year since the 2013 election.”

He refuted Bugeja’s suggestion that he was in denial over the PN’s loss, after the EP elections were once twice in succession by a Labour Party in opposition, and always a year after the general elections in which they had been trounced. “No. Let’s not underestimate our third seat accomplishment… I bow down to the message the people have sent. I have not yet managed to win the people’s trust in just one year.”

Bugeja countered Busuttil’s insistence that with 80,000 voters who stayed away from the ballot boxes, the PN’s static 40% of votes polled meant that its result was not any worse.

“I recognise the result. To me it means there is still more to do… I become a leader of a party at its historic low and on the cusp of a national election. My target was honest and reachable.”

Busuttil ruled out resignation talk or calling for a vote of confidence. “Abandoning the party would be the easiest thing to do. I am determined to bring the PN back on its feet. Calling for a vote of confidence means reopening this debate – it’s not up for discussion. I was called to take this party to its next elections.”

On why the PN was not commissioning a report on its electoral loss as it had done in 2013, Busuttil claimed his party was still working on the findings of the last report. “It’s still early days… it’s a marathon where we’ve only covered a quarter of the route so far.”

So how does he respond to Muscat’s assertive reply that it was Busuttil who had been shown the “yellow card” he told people to give to the prime minister?

“I started this race with two seats… today I have three,” Busuttil replied. “The prime minister only wants people to hear what he has to say, like his claim that this was a race between the two of us when he was already leading by 36,000 votes.”

Busuttil said the PN’s road ahead was a difficult one, after losing by such a great margin after 25 years in government. “The next electoral appointment is in 2018… in our first year we built the foundations, financially and administratively. We’re waiting to bear fruit, having an efficient organisation and a media that communicates our message effectively.”

The Opposition leader said Labour’s propaganda, “aided in part by PBS”, was painting it as a “negative opposition” – a charge he refuted, when he was asked whether he supported the nomination of former minister Karmenu Vella for European Commissioner.

“Labour led a systematic, negative campaign against me, to which I replied with four libel suits. This is part of Labour’s propaganda to brainwash people on what the Opposition is…

Here Bugeja pressed Busuttil for a reply on Karmenu Vella’s nomination for commissioner, but the Opposition leader replied to the PBS head of news’s ‘point of order’ that the Broadcasting Authority had taken several decisions throwing out the PN’s complaints.

Instead of taking a stand on the Vella nomination, Busuttil however said that he had not yet been consulted on the nomination by the Prime Minister.