Better and better
In the immediate aftermath of the 2013 general election, there was a general feeling in the country that the huge electoral defeat suffered by the Nationalist Party at the polls would serve as a launching pad for a rebuilding exercise for the party which
Ibelieved, and a lot of people believed that the party would be able to elect a new team, bring in new faces and revamp its policies which were, at the end, evidently passé. A dose of humility and self-analysis would help the grassroots and activists analyse what went wrong and slowly retry to build a new vision and direction.
When Simon Busuttil was elected in 2013 as leader of the Nationalist Party I had thought that the delegates had made an interesting choice. I was never a sympathiser of Busuttil because I disliked his “chosen one” status but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. To my mind he looked fresh, knowledgeable and quite progressive. During the run up to the 2013 election, I had the opportunity to confront him during a debate or two. I always prepare myself to the best of my ability – I lack the extraordinary genial talent some people are born with so I compensate with hard work, dedication, sacrifice and preparation. To be honest, I surprising had found in Busuttil a below par adversary but one had to keep in mind that he was tasked with defending the indefensible and also that he did not have the local political experience. I thought that by time he would evolve and improve.
For the first year or so, I think that Busuttil was himself, tried his best to rebuild and consolidate without being bitter or overtly confrontational. He was even supportive of the government on key policy decision such as the controversial and delicate drug reform. On the IIP issue, which I was tasked to implement from a technical point of view, he put forward criticism in a very balanced and eloquent manner.
Then he lost the 2014 MEP election with roughly the same margin as the general election a year before. I think that this was a turning point. I believe that since Busuttil demonstrates an evidently weak character, he let himself being psychologically hijacked by the hard line faction of the party. The dark side of any person’s nature – bitterness, anger, envy – took over the day to day psyche of this politician and his kitchen cabinet. Probably he was told that by being nice, all smiles and polite would not win you any votes. Immediately, all criticism became almost farcesque with a doom and gloom attitude which inspired no one. Take IIP for instance, from legitimate criticism it turned into an exaggerated form of bashing which served only to momentarily massage the ego of the extremist faction within PN.
Of course the direct effect of this hard-line approach is that the hard-line faction within the party felt energised. But hardlines are exactly that – hard liners and do not reflect the aspirations of the broad majority. Busuttil cemented his position as undisputed leader of the hard-line faction but in doing that he lost thousands of people who, like most in our country, are reasonable and are, frankly, interested purely in that our country and consequently their family’s standard of living keep improving and move forward.
During this ugly period, Simon Busuttil directly or indirectly, in an active manner or by association, engaged his party into a spree of arrogant bashing of the opposition where nothing was spared. All was fair in love and war, and for Busuttil’s party it was an all out war. No holes were barred. Purely personal happenings of Labour exponents of no political value were thrown unceremoniously online with the aim of denigrating the person and their families, little caring about whether, in doing that, Nationalist-leaning members of that same family (cause in Malta all families are made up of a mixture of Labour and Nationalist supporters) were being alienated. The Nationalist Party here reached the pits. Even their criticism of Labour was overtly exaggerated and driven by hatred rather than by sound reasoning. They ended up suffering from double standards at first, and then no standards at all by the time the election came. Take Egrant for example. Who in his right senses would have linked the future of his party with an unproven lie of the first order? Which decent person would pass our country through all that uncertainty without having facts at hand or without any form of due diligence being done? For Dr Busuttil the only thing which drove him was anger, bitterness, envy and hatred against Labour.
I have written elsewhere that I have respect for Dr Lawrence Gonzi and his family. He never allowed hard-liners to take over while he was leading the Party and even when the writing was on the wall that the Nationalist Party was going to be ousted, he kept leading the country with pride, smartness and to the best of his ability. I deeply disagreed with his policies as I felt they were keeping Malta back from moving forward, but I seriously doubt whether Dr Gonzi would have let his party go through the enormous mistake of using a cruel, false lie and a fabrication as the basis of its political strategy.
The Nationalist Party has now a serious credibility deficit which it cannot surmount. The only way out to at least try and minimise the damage was to decouple itself from Simon Busuttil. Yet, Adrian Delia despite his initial good intentions lacked the spine and ability to do exactly that. Also, the fact that Simon Busuttil evidently cares only about himself and no else does not help. Delia’s fantastic u-turn was the worst thing that could ever happen to the Nationalist Party. He lost the opportunity to get rid of Simon Busuttil and the credibility deficit that Busuttil brings to the Nationalist Party. Delia also lost an opportunity to assert his authority and came out as an incredibly weak leader who does not have the slightest hold on his own party.
Delia will deeply regret the decision he has taken today one year down the line. But that is something which other people will have to contend with.
On our part, we are totally focused on delivering the change we have promised. We want our families to enjoy a better standard of living, employment to boom and keep prospering, business to keep flourishing. We want Malta to become the best it could ever be, a cut above the rest. We are not perfect, we make mistakes – I make mistakes. But we are humble enough to admit whenever we err and take corrective measures as soon as possible. But we also do a lot of good. We took important decisions which have led our country to its best ever period of economic success, with almost full employment and strong service-based economy.
We are 200% committed in keep working overnight to keep making Malta better and better.