One might say that Simon Busuttil is either very brave or foolhardy. To compete to take over the leadership of the Nationalist Party at this stage of its being is not like seeking an invitation to a celebration. The PN is in the doldrums. It has never been any lower in the esteem of a telling majority of the people. It needs total reconstruction, a daunting job that will take years to accomplish.

A careful Labour should win the next election

According to the natural political cycle and to the awesome size of the Labour Party victory in 2013, a careful Labour should win the next general election quite handsomely.

I do not think Busuttil is foolhardy, embarking on a hiding to nothing. He is a legitimately ambitious young politician. He will start at a disadvantage to Joseph Muscat on more than the current situation count. That includes Muscat, despite Busuttil’s relative youth, being his junior by some five years. It encompasses Muscat being the intellectual owner of the finest electoral battle ever fought, comparable to the MLP victory in 1955.

There is more. Busuttil shares with Muscat active experience of membership of the European Parliament, with an edge of four years’ serving time. That is good in terms of the opportunity to forge contacts. Yet the European Parliament does not compare to a national House of Representatives.

There is no real debate where an MEP can develop and hone oratorial and cutting skills. There is, however, scope to participate in committees dealing with a variety of important subjects. Both Muscat and Busuttil did that, being very well thought of in their respective groups, with Busuttil serving longer and so perhaps deeper.

In terms of domestic parliamentary experience, Muscat starts with a sharp advantage. He was Leader of the Opposition for five years, becoming accustomed to counter a very skilful debater in Lawrence Gonzi, then Prime Minister. He cut his teeth and won his spurs. A natural quick wit translated into skilful command of parliamentary cut and parry. Muscat also built up experience of running a large party, with all the little or not-so-little strains it involves behind the scenes.

Busuttil has none of that. He only has a few months’ experience of fire-fighting within his party at the behest of his leader. There is no evidence that he succeeded in limiting the damage to the PN. Rather, he drew upon him the antipathy of most of the ministers and parliamentary secretaries.

For his remedial template became lending a hugely sympathetic ear to disgruntled activists whose expectations and requests had not been met, and then to refer them back to the relevant minister or parliamentary secretary, as if they had ignored requests capriciously and with reckless abandon.

Busuttil will find, as Muscat is finding as Prime Minister, that the room at the top is a room with a view of assorted landscapes, a room with many doors on which the hungry and the angry will come knocking. He knows what he is in for. He will have to prove his mettle in the way he tries to reshape the Nationalist Party.

Ironically he will have to start, has already started, by dumping much of what Gonzi stood for in party terms. Gonzi led the party to an ignoble defeat and left it in organisational and financial tatters. All the clapping and nice words will not erase any of the resulting Nationalist hurt.

Worse, Gonzi left a legacy of scheming by the few and arrogance towards the many, including Nationalist supporters, which is a wound that has to be recognised and openly lanced if a fresh start is to be made. I think that Busuttil, for all his nice demeanour and words, will do just that. Talk about unity and looking forward is all well and good. That does not come about without admitting past mistakes and atoning for them.

Then there is the reshaping of the party. There is much talk of converting it into a people’s party. Ironically, when that term was used in the Mintoff era, his Nationalist detractors immediately labelled the term ‘people’s party’ a throwback to Communist jargon. It was not that then, and it will not be that under Busuttil.

What will the party be? Knocking on doors, as Busuttil has exhorted, is all well and good, but to offer what? There is no big issue left. We are all Europeans now and to knock Labour for having opposed EU entry will be as stale as last fortnight’s bread. Busuttil’s rallying call will not be a vision, but the prospect of the party returning to office and acting more humbly that it did up to the debacle of March 9.

Winning the right to govern is what politics is mostly about nowadays. Labour could not be more business-friendly than Muscat wants it to be. The Nationalist could not wish for fairer social services than Gonzi set out to get. There is no big ideological divide that distinguishes the parties. That does not mean they are completely the same.

The struggle for Muscat and Busuttil will be to identify and adumbrate the differences. Pepsi Cola and Coca Cola are both colas. Yet people identify and specify which one of them they want. How will Busuttil try to differentiate the Nationalist Party looking forward, rather than harping about the past?

He will take time to carve out a strategy. Meanwhile his tactic will be to harass Muscat’s Government as much as can be through a negativism the like of which we have not yet seen, not even from Gonzi.

Negativism will buy time. It will not offer a solution, or make the Nationalist Party fit to govern again. It could be a fresh weapon in Muscat’s hands. Paradoxically, more than Busuttil, Muscat holds the key to the medium-term future of the Nationalist Party. Its fortunes will turn on how well, or badly, Muscat leads the country, not just the Labour Party.