August: majestic eighth month of the year, containing a full 31 days; the silly season also of journalism (known sometimes as ‘cucumber time’), when news is scarce and whimsical stories fill the vacuum created by a general lack of political newsworthiness.
Not this August.
This will go down in history as the August the Nationalist Party effectively tore itself apart. A leadership election which started over a friendly coffee finally turned hostile and bitter, exposing deep-seated divisions, like no other in any other election.
Rifts and rivalries, long downplayed, denied and dismissed, are being played out on television screens, blogs and social media. They can no longer be brushed aside as the myths or imaginings of party ‘defectors’. Nationalist Party members, who have hitherto enjoyed a general immunity from Daphne Caruana Galizia’s Running Commentary, now find themselves, like their political adversaries in Labour ranks, subjected to scurrilous scrutiny. They now know what it is like to be in her line of fire, cowering for cover. Her principal targets are a couple of candidates for the PN leadership; but the collateral damage to the Nationalist cause has already been far-reaching.
What we are witnessing today is no less than fratricide within an entire party. The current crisis is said to be ‘unprecedented’, one of the ugliest in Nationalist history – at any rate in recent living memory.
Members of Parliament, councillors, rank and file party members, grassroots helpers – all those who so desperately want to see the Nationalist Party back in the saddle (never mind the seat of power) – are now having to deal with what is in effect ‘civil war’. Long-serving loyal councillors have been denied a vote in the forthcoming election. What’s App messages have been leaked, MPs’ ill-advised Facebook pictures and posts (giving new meaning to cucumber time) have been published, and everything has been dissected and derided. The general consensus is that, on the battlefield of blogging, the enemy within is far more dangerous than the enemy without.
The anti-Delia faction feels that he has put the party in a precarious state
A select band of Nationalist MPs and supporters are finally getting a taste of what for years they may have overlooked or enjoyed, and even defended as freedom of speech and fair comment. These are the party faithful who, just a few months ago, crowdfunded for ‘democracy and free speech’, people who recently insisted that perception was everything in politics and that, faced with allegations, public figures should automatically resign. They are also the people who stand squarely behind Adrian Delia and feel that he is being unfairly targeted. Which now makes them fair game: people who have never before been on the receiving end of Caruana Galizia’s pointed pen.
Even before she assembled her weapons, Caruana Galizia openly declared war, vowing that if Delia became leader she would fight the Nationalist Party with the same vigour she fights the Labour Party. She has made it her mission to ensure that he is put out of the running.
Reactions have been various. People who wish to see a Simon Busuttil comeback are heavily indebted to Caruana Galizia and angry with Delia for having the audacity to contest the election. They contend that in her bringing matters to a head, the party will be spared future embarrassment – and another Labour landslide – when (sooner or later) the Delia-beans are spilled. Others see Delia as the only ray of hope for the PN and warn that if he (one of the most popular contenders who ran the most passionate, visible and enthusiastic campaign) is dropped, they will pack it all in and abstain in the 2022 General Election.
The anti-Delia faction of course feels that he has put the party in a precarious state and blame him for dragging an already broken party through the dirt. Others reckon that the fault lies squarely with the Nationalist Party for its failure to carry out, a priori, a rigorous test of due-diligence (so let’s put the cart before the horse and have, late in the day, an Ethics Committee to inhibit the Delia vote).
Some doubt whether this is a party capable of organising a bunfight in its own bakery, let alone face the electorate and win a general election. Some are even persuaded that there is a hidden agenda behind Caruana Galizia’s departure from the norm of never washing PN ‘dirty-linen’ – that Delia’s supporters will subvert the ‘clique’ that, ironically, Franco Debono had battled against, and purge the party of destructive forces currently holding it back.
I suppose the whole point of an opinion column is to volunteer mine. So here it comes.
I hover between two views. One that Delia is indeed a liability, the other that, ironically, he may prove to be an asset. He has demonstrated the ability to communicate effectively and persuasively (in a very tense climate) without being rattled, even when faced with a sea of microphones and this with no political experience or training. This gives him – how shall we say? – a certain ‘avoirdupois’ or ‘heavyweight’ presidential image that both charms and convinces and seems programmed never to say the wrong thing. We’ve become so accustomed to seasoned politicians running away from journalists, refusing questions, even when they themselves are not in the hot-seat.
People who blame Delia for creating this mess should actually thank him (and Caruana Galizia) for shining a spotlight on it. Perhaps Delia is merely the symptom of a problem that has festered subcutaneously for a very long time. The Nationalist Party has been papering the cracks and applying foundation for years.
In the final analysis, there are many genuine Nationalist supporters who have every right to feel comfortable in their own political home and not have to take their politics elsewhere. The PN simply cannot afford to keep haemorrhaging votes. It lost two consecutive elections by 35,000-plus votes. Once in a while it should try and remember that.
michelaspiteri@gmail.com