Now that he has been voted in as leader of the Nationalist Party, we all expect Simon Busuttil to immediately start laying down the markers that will define him, his strategies and his politics.
To my reckoning, Busuttil was a good choice and will not have the righteous rioting
Once the twin siren brides of tough and tender, fast and slow, parochial and European, bold and wedded to past politics put him through their tests – as they do with every emerging leader – we shall judge better whether he was a valid choice or a relapse about to happen. For Busuttil, this is tin-hat time.
Busuttil is clearly worth studying. He is both intelligent and a favourite with focus groups and opinion polls. But would Isaiah Berlin place him among the foxes, who know many things, or the hedgehogs who know one big thing?
He is undoubtedly technically very competent, meticulous and a dab hand at explaining complex issues in simple ways.
Politically one would not cast him among the adventurous. One particular lore has him saying he never wanted to be a politician. But since then he has cut his jib to perfectly fit his party’s sometimes ultra-conservative traditions.
He speaks politics in guarded tones, which makes him cautious, not brave. Access to his views on enlightenment values like multiculturalism, widening civil rights, political and social transformation – taxing issues premier Joseph Muscat seems to be ladling on to the national agenda – seems limited to a charmed circle of friends, if they exist at all.
If he fudges telling us straight up what he really thinks he will have to rely on the God of second chances to make his mark.
Critics, on the other hand, view him – perhaps unkindly – as just another product of the Nationalist Party Christian democratic central casting department.
As a core member of the party’s fundamentalist group, they argue, he will be lost in a constantly shifting society like ours, condemning the PN, in the process, to spend years roaming the political wilderness while forcing the sense of displacement felt by supporters to plummet further.
In the minds of voters, the role he played in the uneventful and, if truth be told, dishonest election campaign, where he and fellow party conservatives ran riot and the party into the ground, impeaches him further as a pale copy of the party’s immediate past leadership.
Only a month ago, they add, he was still sounding much like a member of the talking parrots club, unable to provide audiences with the slightest hint of an original thought. And he did himself no favour, the argument goes, not conceding one word of remorse to the party faithful for the many transgressions that turned the government into a political travesty.
As one veteran Nationalist politician puts it, “he is one of those people where failure, dismal or not, is never the fault of the real perpetrators. Their refusal to acknowledge their gross failures on moral, ethical and efficiency grounds is childish”.
Yet the fact remains that politicians who suddenly have greatness thrust upon them do change, and often beyond recognition. He may be Simon the Unknown now but not for long.
It is doubtful the dapper Busuttil will ever morph into Mr Everyman but Eddie Fenech Adami was, at the starting blocks, almost universally viewed as unsuitable to take on the glass-eating Dom Mintoff and Muscat as forbiddingly young.
Look at them both now.
As he begins to emerge into an Opposition leader, Busuttil’s hopes for the future must not take too long to be explained, particularly on where he stands on issues that trouble us all, like corrupt and inefficient governments, public choice, welfare and tax reform.
Whether he will take his party through the structural reforms needed to restore its credibility is of as much consequence as the need to clearly outline his fundamental beliefs on substantial issues that impact on our lifestyles.
That will help us decide whether, crucially, he is to be believed or not. Only then would one be able to form an opinion on whether he does square up to the now highly popular Labour Party.
To my reckoning, Busuttil was a good choice and will not have the righteous rioting. For this country to gain economic and social traction it needs competent leaders who complement each other.
A prime minister and a leader of the opposition who got their political education in Brussels should not waste the opportunity of finding common ground for seriously improving the lot of a mere 400,000 people.
This can be a great country to live in but at this stage Busuttil will serve his worth best by demonstrating courage and vision, the two touchstones to leadership.
Politicians raise their popularity stocks by providing us with an honest, efficient service; as do bankers, people producing our food, our housing, those who keep us healthy and provide us with leisure.
Governments come in with a better chance of doing that well. But one can possibly wrest even more credit achieving that from the opposition benches.
All it takes is keeping at bay the fickle winds of narcissism, unless of course Busuttil wants to run the risk of becoming obscure. That’s not what his record suggests.