[ANALYSIS] Why is Delia using the elitism card?

The stakes are very high for Adrian Delia. For if he does not manage to narrow the gap in next year’s MEP elections he may well face renewed calls to resign from leader.

But this begs the question whether party critics are themselves contributing to this outcome by not respecting the leader chosen by party members.

So Delia has to act fast to assert his authority, fully knowing that any party perceived as divided, stands no chance at the polls.

Delia’s attack on elitism within his party comes in the wake of an earlier call for unity made on NET TV last week in a TV interview with Frank Psaila.

‘No one is bigger than the party’ and those who do not want to see the party progress have an obvious decision to take.

“We have opened the doors for everyone, and spoken with everyone. Those in the party henceforth need to decide. The doors remain open for those who want to work hard for the party to progress, but those who do not, now have an obvious choice to make,” Delia had said.

After playing the unity card, Delia has now gone on the attack.

“The Nationalist Party will not remain an ‘elitist’ party, and it will move to the streets and “understand the problems on Sunday during his party’s General Council.”

Delia – himself a lawyer, businessman and football club president – promised that his party will not remain a party solely for “lawyers and doctors.”

“The PN must remain humble,” Delia said, apologising on behalf of the party to those who were insulted or hurt by the PN in recent years. This may well be seen as a token gesture albeit one which the party’s previous leadership was very hesitant to make.

Ironically the reluctance of a segment of the party to accept the change in leadership may well end up strengthening Delia’s grip. Defiance of the new leader only strengthens the perception that a segment of the party wants Delia to lose MEP elections, in such a way which ushers a new leadership battle. This will not endear them to the party’s grass roots.

Surveys already show Delia consolidating his hold, which suggests that the new PN leader is winning hearts and minds with the restricted cohort of PN voters. Yet he is making no inroads among the Labour voters he needs to win. One reason is that as the party remains divided, Delia will be unable to present a strong challenge to Muscat.  

One major factor will be Delia’s campaigning skills. If he translates his human touch into votes, Delia may well be here to stay. But any failure to register gains in these elections could prompt calls for his resignation.

But lashing at the party’s own elite only reinforces the perception among a category of ‘anti Delia’ PN voters that the new PN leader is Muscat Mark 2.

Delia himself is wary of sounding too much like Muscat when he lashes against the “elite” and thus feels the need to clarify that he is not imitating Muscat.

“Those who claim that we are becoming Labour number 2 are very wrong,” he said. “Joseph Muscat thinks about his own interests, but we think about the good and the needs of the country,” he said.

‘One of us’ as leader?

Delia presents himself as a normal guy who took it upon himself to lead the party despite the opposition he faced from the elite.

Delia had already invoked the anti-establishment card when the party tried to thwart his leadership ambitions by calling on him to withdraw from the race following the publication of documents (by slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia) linking him to a Jersey company that owned property in London sublet to a prostitution racket.

Lashing at the party’s own elite only reinforces the perception among a category of ‘anti Delia’ PN voters that the new PN leader is Muscat Mark 2

He ended up winning against all odds in what was a clear sign that the party’s grass roots wanted change. The members’ vote also reflected the sociological make-up of the PN, which is far less elitist than many assume.

Still by lashing against the party’s establishment Delia himself risks alienating segments of the party’s electorate who identified with former party leaders like Lawrence Gonzi and Simon Busuttil.

Delia may well take a lesson from the last time the party re-invented itself as a mass party after the election of Eddie Fenech Adami as party leader whose first declaration as leader was: “My heart is with the workers”. It was Fenech Adami who opened the party to both working class voters and left leaning intellectuals.

So far Delia’s anti-elitism is more directed at the party’s internal establishment and does not translate in to a call for arms against the country’s establishment. On the contrary there have been conflicting signs of the party reaching out to the same establishment by not opposing certain planning decisions.

Badges of identity

The only discernable policy shift in Delia’s new way is the greater populist emphasis on “foreign workers” and an attempt to cajole moral conservatives by the defence of life from conception into a badge of identity.

On IVF, Delia reiterated that the party is in favour of life. “We are not afraid to abide by our demo-Christian principles.”

This suggests that Delia’s promise of a free vote does not amount to recognition of pluralism on moral issues, which can see conservatives and liberals agreeing to disagree on some issues while agreeing on others.

This suggests a more Trumpian approach towards politics; that of straying away from political correctness and echo what some people say in bars and others say in prayer group meetings.

The question for Delia is how will this go down with liberals in his party and those who actually benefit from the exploitation of cheap foreign labour?

Delia is right in speaking on issues like migration, which have an impact on communities, but does he have the depth to do so in a way, which does not pander to prejudice and which may alienate the middle ground?

Delia may also be right in recognising that the PN contains a large conservative constituency which yearns for representation but would this leave space for PN voters who do not believe that a zygote is human person?

And why is Delia so silent on environmental issues like the proposed 37-storey high rise in Pembroke where he can champion the cause of the common people against a very real establishment?

But while Delia’s political programme remains a works in progress, his anti-elitism is mostly directed at what he perceives as the establishment in his party.

Ironically it was Busuttil who more than any other PN leader before him, took on the country’s real establishment by lashing at corruption, environmental destruction and occasionally big business groups while embracing civil liberties which were an anathema for the PN.    

Yet this only served to expose the party’s internal contradictions. For example, when he broke with tradition by attacking Silvio Debono’s DB group for its Pembroke land grab, he ended up being exposed for accepting money from the same group.

Moreover, his divisive style strengthened the impression that his motivation was driven by resentment against Labour being in power and against big business for embracing Labour, and not the moral question per se.

His promise of a Labour proof government was seen by voters as a sign of the PN’s sense of entitlement. It is the same sense of entitlement which cripples the anti-Delia camp in the PN.

Yet to quell internal dissent Delia still has to prove himself as a leader with a vision which can unite and inspire.

So far, he has not impressed.