New leaders and new ways

Not long after the results of the last general election became known, France held the second round of its Presidential election, which was won by Emmanuel Macron.

Barely a year earlier, Macron’s party – En marche! – did not even exist and Macron was a minister in the floundering socialist government of Francois Hollande.

Sure, Macron did benefit from the fact that his centre-right rival and popular favourite, Francois Fillon, found himself embroiled in serious allegations of financial irregularities. But the main credit for the victory is Macron’s and his team’s ability to both organise and energise voters in a way that established political machines could not.

Across the channel

After the election in France came the election in the UK. Nothing could have been more straightforward or predictable: Theresa May was a shoo-in as the head of a strong and stable government bent on delivering a red, white and-blue Brexit, while Labour was on its way to an election catastrophe predicted to be at 20 percentage points at the beginning of the campaign. Jeremy Corbyn was considered too meek in his manner and too extreme in his policies to be considered as a potential Prime Minister.

Slowly but surely, an efficient grassroots campaign ate at the Tories’ lead. The result was a hung parliament, with May cornered. With the wind blowing in Labour’s sails, had the campaign lasted longer Corbyn would have found himself in number 10. The lesson from the election, the pundits had to humbly admit, was that campaigning matters and can achieve incredible turnarounds.

No inevitability in politics

The first lesson from these two recent events (I could mention others but these are the most significant) is that, in politics, there is no inevitability. It may be hard to remember when your goal ap- pears to be far away and impossible to reach, but our political future is not written in the stars or in the lines of our palms.

The likes of Corbyn and Macron did not take their decisions exclusively on the basis of electoral surveys or the expert views of pundits. They knew that they had to gamble against the odds and the only chance they stood of winning was by thinking outside the box. Unconventional strategies were adopted. There were many disbelievers, naysayers and critics but, in the end, the innovators were proven right.

More than a method

Today’s political winners use innovative methods to win. Both En Marche! and Momentum, the grassroots movement supporting Corbyn, have organised and campaigned in ways that traditional parties would have considered unusual. En Marche has been compared to an ambitious start-up, while ‘ Momentum’ has managed to combine old-style outreach with tech-savviness.

However, tools by themselves do not get the job done. You need a strong and determined leadership at the helm – a leadership that is committed to the betterment of society and the common good, ready to take a few knocks in the short-term but strong enough to withstand them.

The candidates for the election of the leader of the Nationalist Party are now known and there is a wave of enthusiasm amongst the grass roots that is calling for a new way of doing things.

Whoever wins will take the lead at a difficult time for the Party as it recovers from two significant defeats, reorganising and looking to the future as Malta’s alternative government. Difficult, as I said but, as recent events around us show, far from being impossible.