The race for the leadership of the Nationalist Party is over and Simon Busuttil now has the task of rebuilding the party and making it electable once again after its massive electoral defeat in March.
Party unity, especially in view of the backbench turmoil experienced in the previous legislature, will be of paramount importance as Dr Busuttil sets out to offer the electorate an alternative government.
In their concession speeches the three other leadership candidates made an important first step towards a united party when they pledged to continue working for the good of the PN. Mario de Marco’s speech was particularly dignified as he urged the party’s councillors to join him in voting for Dr Busuttil in the next round of voting.
Indeed, Dr Busuttil’s consequent endorsement by 93 per cent of the councillors as he formally took over from Lawrence Gonzi was an excellent start to his leadership. He must now reach out to everyone and re-establish an all-inclusive party which values its ties with its grassroots.
The PN executive council’s decision, on Dr Busuttil’s recommendation, to propose a change in the party’s statute to have two deputy leaders, one for parliamentary affairs and the other for party affairs, is perhaps taken more out of convenience than conviction – in a move to get both Beppe Fenech Adami and Dr de Marco on board.
However, it could reap dividends. Dr Fenech Adami virtually grew up within the party and is close to its traditions and grass roots, while Dr de Marco has already shown an ability to draw the disenchanted closer to the PN.
Together with Dr Busuttil, they can make a strong new leadership team – who should be augmented by a general secretary of stature – as the PN embarks on the road to regain much of the support it lost over the last five years.
Dr Busuttil has said his priority is to make the PN a “people’s party” once again, which will enable it to attract support from all sectors of Maltese society. However, he does not have an easy task ahead of him.
The PN lost the election by a staggering 37,000 votes, the largest margin in Malta’s post-independence electoral history, which means that whole chunks of society abandoned the party.
The new leader has to come to terms with his party’s massive defeat, re-engage with society and present his party’s vision for the future. He must also acknowledge that the ideological battles of yesterday are no longer relevant, and that despite making some terrible appointments in the public sector, the Labour Party has indeed changed and has so far emphasised continuity in its economic, foreign and European policy.
Dr Busuttil certainly has big shoes to fill. He is the successor to George Borg Olivier, who brought about Malta’s independence, Eddie Fenech Adami, who restored Malta’s democracy and got us into the EU, and Lawrence Gonzi, who took Malta into the single currency and who managed the country exceptionally well during both the Libyan and eurozone crisis.
The new PN leader, however, certainly has the potential to make a success of his new role. He has an excellent record as an MEP, has a forward-looking European outlook of politics, is a very good communicator and his political orientation is centrist.
His challenge now is to make the PN – which can be so proud of its history and which has been the catalyst for positive change in Malta over the past decades – a credible alternative government, one that can identify with society’s needs and aspirations.