How the Nationalist Party killed itself

It’s all very tragic, isn’t it?

Mind you, I take no pleasure in such a severe diagnosis. In fact, I’ve dedicated quite a few column inches to what the Nationalist Party could do to become more than just a shadow of its former self.

I also don’t actually want to spend so much time and energy on writing about a party which I think has just condemned itself to oblivion. But, needs must when the devil drives, and one cannot underestimate the once-in-a-lifetime importance of closely observing a meltdown like this one.

So, here we are, standing at the burial grounds, ready for the postmortem.

Before my comments section gets swarmed by furious Nationalist Party supporters calling me presumptuous for thinking I know what their party needs better than they do – know that I think you are also part of the problem.

Not because you disagree with me, but because many of you seem to be unwilling to accept that your formula is flawed and requires fundamental revisions. I am not the only critic who isn’t swayed by your arguments, and with good reason.

This is not a personal opinion, but a fact that is reflected in one major survey after the other, in one electoral defeat after the other, the whole damned list of missed opportunities to regain territory as the Labour Party continues to turn the country into its personal stomping grounds.

Since December 2023, I’ve been patiently pointing out how Malta’s major political parties are slowly bleeding out support. The only tangible difference between the government and the opposition is that the former has a fat war chest of taxpayer funds to abuse, while the latter doesn’t.

To overcome that obvious gap, the party could have chosen to be more creative and inclusive in its approach. A robust anti-corruption alliance featuring candidates from the PN, upcoming parties like Momentum, and perhaps even representatives from civil society could have really given Labour a run for its (our) money.

After European Parliament president Roberta Metsola announced she would not run for leadership, the only alternative that remained for the Nationalist Party was to draw from its ranks and find a leader who could spearhead a total overhaul.

Given that nominations for the leadership contest closed on Sunday afternoon, the party’s members must now choose between Adrian Delia and Alex Borg.

When considering that I wrote a total of 6,000 words about how I don’t think either of these two candidates represent what the party needs at this existential juncture, it’s hardly a secret why I think that there’s nowhere left to turn for the Nationalist Party.

The fact is that the PN became increasingly isolationist in its approach over the years. It failed to grapple with the vast complexity of the world outside of its cumbersome network of interlocking committees and clubs. Refusing to let the world in is always a recipe for stagnation.

What this led to is a disastrous echo chamber, a leader who just about managed to keep the party intact before resigning, and poorly choreographed expressions of interest in the ensuing vacancy.

A party that desperately needed a breath of fresh air is instead going to spend the summer debating whether to elect a younger/older version of the same bland platform. Promising candidates like Mark Anthony Sammut did not seek to break the mould, and seem to have instead resigned themselves to more of the same.

The party’s hardcore can promise their new leader all the loyalty in the world; in the eyes of the wider electorate, that is going to mean absolutely nothing. If anything, a new party leader who fails to upset a few apple carts will just prove they have no new ideas to shake up the party’s foundation.

The other problem is that both Delia and Borg used scorched earth tactics to deal with their critics. They are both surrounded by outspoken diehards who will sooner fall on the sword than challenge their leader.

Case in point: the pathetic, downright depressing manner in which both camps publicly accused each other of turning back on their word that one would not run against the other.

Before the rift became publicly known, both claimed to encourage others to bid for the leadership position. After news of the apparently acrimonious disagreement about who would run began to emerge, both of them eventually submitted their expression of interest, contradicting the terms of the supposed deal to not oppose each other.

Please tell me who in their right mind would trust two politicians who were supposedly working in tandem throughout the past three years, only to then fail to reach a final agreement about who would run for leadership?

Who would be so foolish as to trust two candidates who, to begin with, apparently thought it was appropriate to publicly pay lip service to the democratic right of their party’s members to choose as freely as possible only to then privately agree to not run against each other?

And, to swivel back towards the ideological straitjacket the Nationalist Party finds itself in for a second: does anyone trust these two conflict-prone individuals to amicably reconcile their conservative views with the shriveling liberal wing of the party?

Both prospective leaders have made no inroads with demographics who fall far outside of their traditional base. On the contrary, the positions they’ve adopted on civil rights issues effectively amount to moral restrictions rather than evidence-based positions that can withstand the scrutiny of a debate.

How is the Nationalist Party going to make inroads with the non-voter bloc of the electorate when all it can offer is expired tropes and vague promises? It is evident there is a dire lack of technocrats within the party who can do all the policy heavy lifting and come up with respectable, detailed positions on social issues for which the public desperately wants solutions.

Though I did write plenty of cynical commentary about this subject throughout the past two years, even I wasn’t expecting to witness such a dramatic decline in a short time.

For what it’s worth, a part of me does hope that I am catastrophically wrong about all of this, and that the Nationalist Party will finally pull itself together and realise which direction needs to be taken for it to succeed.

For all its flaws, the Nationalist Party is currently the only parliamentary group that can fight back against the Labour Party’s relentless dismantling of our democracy. Its demise spells far greater trouble for this country’s governance than anything we’ve faced in the past twelve years, make no mistake about it.

At the same time, it feels inevitable that one of the two major parties in this country had to croak before anybody else could rise to the occasion of offering a new alternative. It’ll be up to the newcomers to prove they’ve got the grit to break the deadlock.

At this stage, all bets are off.