It’s no secret that the Nationalist Party is in the red. The financial meltdown of the party made the news shortly after the election when it was revealed that employees were not being paid punctually.

It seems there isn’t much money in the kitty. We don’t know if more should be set aside for the payment of water and electricity bills, because ARMS Ltd gets very cagey about whether the PN and the PL are up to date with the payment of their utility bills.

Whereas the Government’s payment agency acts like a hound from hell when ordinary citizens fail to pay their bills on time, its representatives refuse to tell us if the political parties receive the same treatment.

If the same screws are not being applied to them, this would effectively mean we are subsidising the PN’s water and electricity bills. It would also mean the PN is even deeper in debt than is widely known. That apart – a report about the PN’s financial situation has been drawn up, and although the public was not made privy to its contents, we can assume it contains recommendations about increasing revenue.

On Facebook too, the pro-PN pages were buzzing with proposals about how to fill those coffers. One gem came from former PN treasurer Peter Darmanin. He said if he were still occupying that position today, he would roll out a new scheme called ‘PN euro a week’. Under this scheme, card-carrying members of the Nationalist Party and other supporters would donate €1 per week to the party.

Darmanin thinks the best way of going about this is by having them make out a standing order, which they could then forget, but at least the party’s finances would benefit from the drip-financing effect.

Those €1 donors who had no truck with the standing order business, could hand over their pennies to the Road Runner appointed by the party for the purpose of collecting the coins in different localities.

The objectives of the scheme would be to have 10,000 donors chipping in every week. If all went according to plan, the PN would have an annual income of €520,000 at its disposal. This would alleviate some of the party’s financial woes and shore up its wages structure.

Now Darmanin’s proposal conjures up images of a Maltese version of the Road Runner cartoon beep-beeping his escape from Wile E. Coyote – instead of the super-fast bird, we’d have the Nationalist fundraisers whizzing through the streets.

Up to a decade ago, one’s party was one’s tribe. But nowadays, loyalties are not so well-defined

It’s a suggestion based on going back to the party’s roots and raising money through the time-honoured method of small donations from many people.

This is the much-touted ‘ftit tal-hafna’ that Labour explains as being the source of its war chest. Not that anybody believes it, of course). A successful application of such a scheme would result in the party’s reconnection with its members and would also have the added advantage of helping the party shake free of its ties to the big business donors who fund it (or who did until they realised that the PN ship had sprung holes and was sinking fast).

It would be an ideal solution, serving to re-energise party activists and generally to prevent the parties being so obviously indebted to the special interest groups who send big dollops of cash their way.

However – and I think that this is really unfortunate – such schemes are unlikely to work. That’s because the very nature of political parties and elections has changed.

Up to a decade ago, one’s party was one’s tribe. Supporters were card-carrying members of their parties. But nowadays, loyalties are not so well-defined. Voters switch allegiances and elections are won by assembling rainbow coalitions – disparate groups who coalesce in one voting mass for the election, but who are unlikely to stick around for the whole five years in between.

With these kinds of loose allegiances, it’s difficult to maintain the level of pre-election activism and energy after the day, when it’s more a case of ploughing on without any immediate election/event in sight. So I’m not sure if the micro-donations of the grass roots idea will pan out.

When the major political parties cotton on to this and to the fact they’re going to be perpetually in hock to their big donors, they’re bound to start making noises about state funding of political parties.

Here again, they’re going to meet huge resistance from people who are disillusioned with politicians and who are not going to welcome the idea of more taxes to fund a political class they perceive as being generally untrustworthy.

With that bleak forecast in place, I would agree with those commentators who say the only way forward is to try and re-invent the political parties as mass-membership organisations. It’s not easy and it’s not guaranteed to be successful, but it’s worth a try.

Maybe the Road Runner could double as a membership officer when he’s doing his rounds.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt