The Maltese spring(board)

I guess there’s no playing around with words. The way I see it, all roads lead to Castille. The truth of the matter is that the whole situation spiralled out of control for the Nationalists Party. The PN has been a seat of discontent for some time now. I think that this is symptomatic of an organisation that is going through the lower part of the curve.

The parties fear that the ‘no vote’ will be a strong vote!- Andrew Azzopardi

I see this as an opportunity for the PN. In my humble opinion, 2008 should have been the moment the party had to look at the way things were/not working. It was a golden opportunity for it to get some internal reforms going.

However, Lawrence Gonzi outplayed all the bookmakers and squeezed back into power. The outcome of that electoral result gave the impression that it’s business as usual. I’ve heard collaborators of the Prime Minister repeatedly saying that this electoral achievement would propel Dr Gonzi to higher grounds. But it wasn’t to be.

Too much dissent and discontent has come into play and little has been done to congregate all these speckled blocs.

To be fair to history, in my unassuming opinion, the PN has always been a party of coalitions. Eddie Fenech Adami and his team had much to juggle with during their tenure. The following is a panoramic look at the groups that made up the voting base of the PN since the early 1980s, possibly even before:

Those born in the 1960s and 1970s. These voters were comfortable being part of the PN because of the political scenario of the time. They felt reassured that the leadership of Dr Fenech Adami, Louis Galea, Ċensu Tabone and Guido de Marco, among others, would see them through.

The people in this generation of voters may not have all been PN sympathisers but felt comfortable enough to dream about liberty, about Europe, about an improved quality of life. Is this still the case?

The second segment of the coalition was made up of the nationalist working class who had unionist roots ingrained in them. These were a cluster of people who were alienated by the situation in the country.

In truth, the PN never really understood or connected with this group but they were the spine of the resistance in the south of Malta back then. This group of people seems to be heading back “home”, finding comfort in the Labour Party.

Then there are the voters who traditionally come from the ninth and 10th district, with a strong “Stricklandian” sympathy.

These are probably better known as the business class. They are essentially liberal in thought and lifestyle. They are considerably irritated by the way the divorce debate turned out, the financial measures they had to endure, the excessive construction that is happening in that area and a traffic management plan that has gone down the drain potentially ruining the value of their property.

There seems to be an attempt to get them back on the bandwagon but I very much doubt this will happen anytime soon.

More than that, it seems that there isn’t the leadership that was found in the persona of George Bonello du Puis. More often than not, with the hardwearing candidature that the PN has in these districts, most, if not all, have created their own little parish rather than taking on board the challenge to have a collective advance.

Then there is the soul of the PN, namely, the Catholic conservatives who may have lost a bit of ground in terms of numbers but are still strongly represented in the party structures. Many claim that they seem to be over-represented in the party, something that should be renewed and rethought in this day and age considering the political landscape.

It still seems to be a feather in one’s cap if one carries the conservative label.

Another faction is the small extreme right bloc that seems to be taking refuge and growing slowly but surely within the PN now that the frail efforts to have an alternative party from that end of the continuum have fizzled out.

Finally, there are those who are, in essence, motivated by identity politics (gays, animal rights activists, persons with disability, environmentalists, among others) who are in limbo. The “party” that had taken their agenda on board for these last couple of decades seems to be disengaged at the moment.

These groups seem to be shifting towards the PL in leaps and bounds and, possibly, in smaller numbers to Alternattiva Demokratika.

In reality, the truth is that votes are scarce. The parties fear that the “no vote” will be a strong vote!

If the PN is to be anywhere near competitive in this forthcoming election, it needs to reinvent the “alliance” rationale.

The jigsaw puzzle called PN always managed to hang on because the issues in dispute made it instinctive to link up together. With the open market, EU, the euro all in place, I think it will be a long and hard road to Castille this time round for the PN clan. My gut feeling is that the Maltese spring (board) will be launching a new political raison d’état.

www.andrewazzopardi.org

Dr Azzopardi is senior lecturer, Department of Youth and Community Studies, University of Malta.