The PN’s war of attrition

Every electoral ‘battle’ is a struggle to win a country’s soul. However, this time round we have a study in contrasts. On one hand, the positive thinking of the PL and an electoral programme that was described as impressive by at least two former Nationalist Cabinet members as well as by various eminent stakeholders in civil society. On the other, we have the war of attrition being conducted by GonziPN strategists.

Some of their key strategists have given the impression that they are merely going through the motions

One need not be a Sun Tzu military strategist or theorist to realise that the side that perceives itself to be at a marked disadvantage in manoeuvre warfare or in terms of unit tactics may deliberately seek out attrition warfare to neutralise its opponent’s advantages. As the classic definition goes, if the sides are nearly evenly matched, the outcome of a war of attrition is likely to be a Pyrrhic victory.

What must be indeed worrying for GonziPN is that the very same person who seems to be hitting the panic button is none other than the one who was meant to be the spearhead of their electoral campaign.

In time honoured fashion, the moment he found himself cornered on the Oilgate saga he resorted to the stock-in-trade approach of trying to bring down the whole Cabinet with him.

Such a tactic was applied in the past when he was under fire due to the BWSC scandal.

The Prime Minister himself made a bad situation worse, by choosing to back to the hilt and endorse the behaviour of a key minister who will not be subjecting himself to the scrutiny of the electorate since he has long decided not to run for the next general election.

Even were this not to be the case, in the light of such statements the onus of political responsibility for all that has surfaced so far and all that may emerge in future rests with the Prime Minister himself.

This time round GonziPN will no longer be judged by its new promises and its electoral manifesto but rather by its record and broken promises to date.

While the potential blowback of the Oilgate saga continues to cause such an uncertainty in their ranks that even the PN’s new deputy leader has attempted to steer clear of its implications, any attempts to paper over the hubris that has taken over GonziPN have so far proved to be unsuccessful.

With the benefit of hindsight and the Government’s poor performance to date in both the sectors of oil exploration and the quest for alternative energy, one can understand with greater ease why it might have deliberately chosen to go against the grain and opt for increased fuel import dependency. Even at the risk of aborting its own original plans – some of which date back to the times when Josef Bonnici was responsible for the economic portfolio.

While intensive efforts seem to be underway to groom the GonziPN deputy leader by trying to give him a political makeover in order to come across as forceful and aggressive – which he definitely is not – it has been nothing short of pathetic to take note of his recent public statements wherein he distanced himself from GonziPN’s strategic mistakes of the not-too-distant past. The implication is that the new GonziPN was reborn if not also created on the same day that Simon Busuttil was elected deputy leader of his party.

Many of his statements come to mind: if he were former PN general secretary Joe Saliba he would not have accepted to go on a cruise on the luxury boat of one of the PN’s main financial backers.

If it were up to him he would have encouraged the party to take a pro-divorce stand.

According to him it was a strategic mistake for the Cabinet to give itself a covert and hefty rise in salary in the early days of this legislature.

And on and on and on, nearly making us forget that he was the chief architect of the 2008 electoral campaign programme, which ended up taking so many gullible voters for a ride.

Whether his similar ploy this time round as coordinator of the GonziPN 2013 electoral manifesto will be as successful still needs to be seen but there is no doubt that this particular manifesto will stand out not only for what it says but also for key issues that it has deliberately ignored.

These range from Smart City to the White Rocks Project and the Corporate Village; from the controversial hunting issue to the even more important and significant issues of the Whistleblower’s Act, party financing laws as well as the need to remove any time bars linked to criminal action against ministers of the past, present and future regarding any illicit and illegal activities, which is a long-standing commitment of the PL.

I consider the issue of party financing somewhat of a feather in my cap because I had represented my party on the Galdes Commission whose inconclusive report was mainly attributed to the abortive attempts of the PN, after months on end of meetings.

The Prime Minister’s recent decision to reiterate a promise to attack corruption hardly holds any water particularly since he did not even bother to include such a pledge in the manifesto itself.

While GonziPN have been trying to hint that the PL has a better funded campaign, it is more a question of the PL having a slicker and stronger campaign, not only presentation wise but also strategically and logistically.

Apart from the various potential and real gaffe opportunities, GonziPN have arguably fought one of their worst electoral campaigns. Some of their key strategists have given the impression that they are merely going through the motions, even somewhat half heartedly, recycling ideas and strategies that the same tired lot have employed since the 1996 campaign.

Meanwhile, GonziPN continue to adopt a reactive flip flop approach. With the Prime Minister’s no comment shifting to a full Cabinet defence of Minister Austin Gatt. And with Gatt showing disregard towards the ongoing investigations that he originally did not want to prejudice by going public twice in 24 hours.

Meanwhile, we wait with deep interest to find out who were those on the receiving end of special gifts. Or rather, as a question in one of the infamous Oilgate e-mails ran: did the dragon like the diamond?

Brincat.leo@gmail.com

www.leobrincat.com

Leo Brincat MP is the Labour Party’s spokesman for the environment, sustainable development and climate change.