A new Nationalist leader

It has been quite a while (three years and three months) since I wrote as follows on this column: “Will (Lawrence) Gonzi gracefully bow out before the next election? Will Simon Busuttil accept the crown if it is offered to him? Will other young pretenders meekly accept the Busuttil solution? Will older players miss the opportunity of settling scores and etching their name in tomorrow’s history books?” (www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090119/opinion/no-quantum-of-solace.241342).

For far-seeing Nationalists, the issue of a change of leadership is of the utmost importance- Mario Vella

As it is now too late for Dr Gonzi to exit the stage before the coming election, the issue of his successor as leader of the Nationalist Party will have to be settled after the election. And the issue will arise, whatever the result, even in the case of a Nationalist victory. For far-seeing Nationalists, the issue of a change of leadership is of the utmost importance. Indeed, for quite a number of them, it is even more important than winning the coming election.

They fear that if the PN does somehow manage to scrape through by a couple of hundred votes – a greater margin being unthinkable in the circumstances – the change that their party badly needs if it is to restore its credibility with the thinking electorate will be postponed again. If they only had a guarantee that a victory – even with an anorexic majority – would not stop Dr Gonzi from kicking out all those ministers, parliamentary secretaries and sundry political appointees that have shown themselves to be arrogant or incompetent or both, then they might give him one last try.

But can Dr Gonzi give such a guarantee now without admitting that he has all along been appointing and protecting just such characters? Moreover, even if he had to promise the electorate to make a clean sweep of the stables, would his word be worth very much today?

How can he attempt to convince thinking Nationalists that if the electorate were to concede his party one last chance he, at least, would not prevent a radical overhaul of a party that has evidently lost its sense of purpose and direction?

The ideal option would have been for him to resign and hand over party leadership and Premiership to an elected successor acceptable to all the PN parliamentary group. The new leader would, of course, have to guarantee a totally new team if returned to power at the coming election.

Way back in 2009, I still considered this a plausible scenario and had written as much. I thought that with Dr Gonzi’s placet, the PN would choose MEP Simon Busuttil as its new leader in sufficient time for the man to have a sporting chance of driving his party to victory.

That Dr Gonzi thinks that Dr Busuttil is the only one who comes anywhere close to being acceptable to those party supporters and floaters who have their nose full with this government’s antics, is indicated by the PN leader’s appointment of the 42-year-old EU parliamentarian late in February of this year as his “special delegate” to reach out to parts of society other Nationalist politicians cannot reach.

This newspaper, in its editorial of February 27 understandably suggested that this could have been the start of a leadership succession campaign.

Dr Busuttil was reported to have laughed this off but could he have reacted otherwise? When, in the above quoted 2009 article, I suggested that Dr Busuttil was a final card that Dr Gonzi might choose to play to save his party, the usual paladins posting on the online paper were quick to say that I have “quite a vivid imagination” and that mine were only “wishful thinking and dreams”. Anyway, in 2009, Dr Gonzi may have felt that he was strong enough not to need to hand over to a younger and more credible politician before the election. He may, on the other hand, simply have been far too weak to go for such a radical option.

Whatever, it is too late for him now to play this card. The “special delegate” idea is far too little and too late. With it Dr Gonzi has merely strengthened the hand of those in the PN that stand to lose from its radical overhaul. These will now have plenty of time to prepare themselves for whatever happens at the coming election and you can bet your last cent that they will not look favourably upon new ideas.

If, as is not unlikely, the PN fails to be re-elected, the reactionaries within it will, to start with, attempt to persuade Dr Gonzi to stay on. Should that fail, they will canvass for a new leader that will resist any change that might lead to new blood taking over the party at both the central and the local levels.

No doubt, there are wannabe leaders lurking in the wings whose characteristics fit this job description. In my view, however, there are other and more enlightened elements in the PN that are looking forward to the opportunity of rethinking their party.

They dream of a PN that is more sensitive to the signs of the time and more open to new ideas. They would do well to seize the opportunity of being in opposition to rebuild their party.

Dr Vella blogs at http://watersbroken.wordpress.com .