Will Simon Busuttil’s new broom sweep clean?

Much like Ozzy Osbourne in 1972, the Nationalist Party is "going through changes".

Not only has the PN changed its leader, but it has also changed its administrative structure to reflect the aftermath of an election which split the party into at least two - and possibly more - factions.

In a sense, this was predictable from as early as last December, when Simon Busuttil (who had long been widely tipped for the eventual leadership) was flown down from Brussels to energise the party's ailing campaign. Immediately there were indications of a backlash: his nomination for deputy leader was met with resistance from almost the entire Cabinet, which threw its weight behind Finance Minister Tonio Fenech instead.

Even his elevation to the leadership last Sunday seemed to depart from the traditional script, in that the vote proved to be very tight indeed. In the end, former tourism minister Mario de Marco gave Busuttil a good run for his money, only to withdraw his nomination after garnering a very respectful 38.5% in the first round.

Busuttil only just managed to scrape past the 50% mark in the same round - and it was ultimately thanks to de Marco's decision to bow out altogether that he was elected, almost by elimination.

Significantly, there is evidence (including our own survey - see page 1) that public opinion among Nationalist voters was likewise split along almost-identical lines.

This technically means that Busuttil's election met the active approval of only a slender majority of Nationalist voters. But the statistic that should worry him more concerns the number of 'switchers' (that is, former PN voters who voted Labour in March) who evidently believe the PN made the wrong choice.

Of this all-important category, a staggering 66.2% are convinced that Simon Busuttil will further weaken the already-debilitated Nationalist Party. And that is not the most encouraging way to start one's career as party leader.

A house divided

The good news for the PN, however, is that Busuttil himself very clearly understands the dilemma currently facing his party. His inaugural speech as leader was focused on 'reaching out' to the disillusioned Nationalists who had abandoned the party before March 9 - and many of whom openly backed de Marco for the leadership.

But it was Busuttil's proposal to introduce a whole new administrative role (a deputy leader for party affairs, in what turns out to be a straight remodelling of the PN's administrative structures along Labour lines) which was most indicative of the balancing act the newly installed party leader now has to perform, if he is to prove his critics wrong.

At a glance, the new post seems tailor-made to accommodate Mario de Marco as part of the leadership team. This in turn means that Busuttil is very conscious of the need to avoid repeating the mistake made by Lawrence Gonzi in 2003, when the former PM sidelined and ultimately banished his closest rival for the post, with effects that would reverberate throughout the next decade.

But Busuttil's plans, while fully understandable from a political perspective, have nonetheless hit an immediate snag. There already was a deputy leader position available within the party structures; and Mario de Marco had already precluded himself from occupying it.

Instead, the only two contestants for that post are Beppe Fenech Adami (widely perceived to be part of the so-called 'confessional wing') and newcomer Claudette Buttigieg.

Busuttil's decision to broaden the party structures is therefore open to a wide variety of interpretations: one of them could indicate a lack of confidence in the abilities of either Buttigieg or Fenech Adami to attract the 'lost sheep' back to the fold in time for the next election.

Even the fact that Busuttil was compelled to defend this administrative change - claiming that it would "alleviate the burden on the secretary-general" - suggests that the initiative was indeed widely interpreted as a move to appease his closest rival and to avoid a souring of relations of the kind that had caused so many headaches for Gonzi.

However, not all internal dissidents are convinced. Some have been openly scathing about the proposal.

Former MP Jean-Pierre Farrugia has already hit out at the decision as an indication that the PN is still controlled by an invisible clique.

"That is how the PN still works," he commented online. "If a person wants a place in the Cabinet he is appointed even if elected through a by-election (Austin Gatt in 1998); and if the prodigal son (filjozz) is hell-bent on becoming deputy leader we create two [posts]".

More controversially, Farrugia has floated the idea that a deputy leader for party affairs should not be chosen from the ranks of Parliament at all. And while this could be interpreted as an expression of interest in the role himself - Farrugia having failed to get elected to Parliament - it looks more like a direct challenge to the perception of a party which adapts its structures according to the exigencies of individual politicians, and not vice versa.

Meanwhile, with nominations for the new post set to open tomorrow, Busuttil's initiative may also prove to be a risky gamble for another reason.

Even if the post does seem to have been created specifically to accommodate Mario de Marco (and, by extension, to win back his followers), there is no actual guarantee that de Marco himself will take it up.

Nor is there any guarantee that he will be uncontested for the role. No doubt efforts are underway behind the scenes to ensure that the right candidate gets chosen, but with Busuttil already failing to secure a convincing majority in his own election, it remains to be seen how much power he actually exerts over the party's main decision-making forum in this respect.

At best, Busuttil may succeed in securing the post for de Marco - even if, in so doing, he sows the seeds for future discontent among other factions, notably that spearheaded by Fenech Adami himself. At worst, he could conceivably fail to achieve his goal and not only end up saddled with an unforeseen 'deputy leader for party affairs' who fails to unite the party as planned, but the awkward situation would also illustrate for all to see that the newly elected party leader is not in total control of his party at all.

Reinventing his own image

But there is more than just the spectre of internal dissent to haunt Busuttil's first shaky steps as PN leader. The former MEP from Lija also has demons of his own to exorcise, not least the far-reaching impression that his own performance in the election campaign contributed to the PN's landslide defeat.

Considering that the entire campaign was underpinned by Joseph Muscat's call for an end to the culture of political division, Busuttil proceeded to contribute a spectacular succession of gaffes which played directly into the hands of the Opposition. (Indeed there were even jokes to the effect that Busuttil was actually "Labour's secret weapon".)

His ill-fated quip that Deborah Schembri had the "face of a Nationalist" provided practically all the ammunition for the PL's successful counter-strategy, encapsulated in the slogan Malta taghna lkoll ("Malta belongs to all"). Elsewhere, his exhortation to voters to "say the rosary" not only compounded the impression of a battle that was already lost, but also subliminally aligned Busuttil with the party's lunatic fundamentalist fringe, which had already put off a sizeable chunk of its own support base.

It was these and other misadventures that caused 66.2% of the selfsame 'former Nationalists' to react so negatively to his appointment as leader. However, the impression itself may not be so hard to correct, for two reasons.

One, the new Labour government has since shot much of its own commitment to meritocracy to atoms, with a raft of public appointments that chime in perfectly with precisely the same old cronyism we used to associated with the PN under Gonzi.

This in turn seems to have proved Busuttil right in at least one aspect of his earlier criticism of Labour: the mask was indeed loose and did in fact slip almost instantly after the election.

Two, Busuttil has since the election declared his intention to strike out in a different and less overtly conservative direction from his predecessor. Here, his nine-year record as MEP will surely come to his aid.

For all his banter about prayer and rosaries (so uncomfortably reminiscent of Tonio Fenech's "weeping Madonna" gaffe in 2011), Busuttil's actual contribution to European legislation was altogether more liberal than conservative. He successfully persuaded the European People's Party to adopt an anti-homophobia resolution, for instance; and unlike many of his colleagues in the PN, he had the good sense to keep quiet for the entire duration of the divorce referendum campaign.

It may be too early to tell, but if Busuttil does realign the party to have a more liberal bent, he may well pit himself directly against Beppe Fenech Adami (who remains closely associated with the 'no' lobby). In this respect he may paradoxically find an ally in his current 'rival', Mario de Marco - who pitched his entire leadership bid on a return to a more 'liberal' PN.

At the end of the day, however, Simon Busuttil's greatest asset in the past - his eloquence when still MiC chairman - is likely to also be his greatest handicap as leader. His success or otherwise in uniting the fractured PN will ultimately boil down to his own ability to convince disillusioned Nationalists that the accident-prone Simon Busuttil we all saw in the campaign was not, in fact, the real Simon Busuttil at all.

Here his immediate past may well undermine his efforts - even if "past performance is no guarantee of the future".