Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi risks riding into political oblivion and condemning the Nationalist Party to years in Opposition if he goes to the polls with a divided party, according to former PN president Frank Portelli.

“Compromise might be a better solution,” Dr Portelli told The Times yesterday, 24 hours after the government survived a no-confidence motion in Parliament but lost the support of one of its backbenchers.

Thursday’s events have left people wondering what the next step will be and whether an election is the only way out of the political impasse that has developed.

Franco Debono, the PN backbencher at the centre of the maelstrom, has gone silent after delivering a speech of one hour and 10 minutes on Wednesday outlining his complaints about the government.

“I have no comment to make. What I had to say I said in Parliament and the media over the past weeks,” he sressed when contacted yesterday, hinting that the ball was now in the Prime Minister’s court.

Soon after the vote, Dr Gonzi said he would find a solution within the PN’s internal structures. A party general council will be held tomorrow but the solution has yet to be spelt out.

Dr Portelli believes Dr Gonzi can try to continue governing – he has no constitutional obligation to advise the President to dissolve Parliament and call an election – but to do so he would have to regain the support of the majority of MPs.

The former PN president listed three possible options for a solution, including “a historic compromise” with Dr Debono by establishing “a working relationship”.

A second option was for Dr Gonzi to offer his resignation as Prime Minister if the deputy Prime Minister or any other MP from the PN was “willing and able” to obtain the support of the majority of the House.

Alternatively, the PN might try to form a national government with the Opposition, Dr Portelli said.

If none of the compromise solutions were possible a general election would have to be called. But the prospects for the PN were very grim, he added.

“Perhaps a political lesson can be learnt from the events of 1998 when a Labour prime minister went to the country with a divided party and rode into political oblivion and 14 years of Opposition,” Dr Portelli said, adding that a compromise might be a better solution.

Whether a compromise will be sought has still to be seen but for historian Henry Frendo, Dr Debono’s abstention has bought the Administration some time.

A vote for the no-confidence motion would have immediately sent the country to the polls. “It is not an ideal situation to survive with the Speaker’s casting vote but it gives the Administration some breathing space to pass important legislation pending before Parliament,” he said.

The time could be used to reach some form of arrangement with Dr Debono, such as agreeing on a time frame to pass the political party financing Bill he presented.

“Dr Debono’s decision to submit the Bill in his personal capacity presupposes he intends to pilot it and this obviously requires some time until it passes through all stages in Parliament. But at the end of the day it all depends on what Dr Debono does.”

For PN backbencher Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, however, there are no ifs and buts, with an election being the only solution to stem the instability.

“You cannot run a country simply because you are legally allowed to do so,” he said with reference to Dr Gonzi’s argument that there was no constitutional obligation to call an election, because the no-confidence motion had been defeated.

Dr Pullicino Orlando drew the same parallels made by Opposition leader Joseph Muscat on Thursday by referring to the anomalous situation after the 1981 election.

He asked: “After 1981, Dom Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici were legally correct to continue running the country but were they morally right to do so?”

In that election Labour had won a majority of parliamentary seats but not of votes. The Constitution permitted such a situation then.

Dr Pullicino Orlando said the current political situation was not good for “the country and the party”, adding that “morally the PN cannot continue to run the country with instability around”.