To define the running Nationalist Party leadership campaign unexciting is deceitfully merciful; more honest to call it damaging for the party, bad for democracy.

PN voters themselves have stopped following the campaign and say they would rather not vote for any of the four contestants. I should think the administrative council officials and the card-carrying members are less confused but quite a few of them are still undecided who to vote for.

Frank Portelli seems to be the wooden-spooner in this race and, yet, in a sense he is the one who offers most hope out of this impasse. He vowed he will resign if, over the next two years, he fails to bring back into the fold at least 20,000 lost sheep, in time for the next local elections.

He is generously offering a lifeline to the party. The PN could, only if it elects him as leader, hold a second, less harmful campaign in two years’ time. This time with new and some older faces, including, of course, that of Simon Busuttil himself. None of the other contestants dared make such a bold, self-sacrificing offer. There is, of course, the not so likely possibility that Portelli will really manage to pull off his challenge but, then, who will doubt he was worth the vote?

Some will consider all this as tongue-in-cheek banter, others might think this is a clear attempt to put a spoke in the PN’s wheel and others still that it could be worth a second thought. But none can doubt that, either way, Portelli is providing a golden solution to a real muddle.