The outcome of last weekend’s poll was a foregone conclusion, even the huge margin with which the Labour Party won the European elections. The fate of the Nationalist Party might become even bleaker when the local council elections results are out.
Having enjoyed another landslide victory, Joseph Muscat can now proceed to decide on his future, whether as party leader and prime minister and in his quest for a top job within the European Union. His Labour Party continues to ride the crest of popular support. The economy remains strong and the government keeps posting a surplus.
The allegations of corruption and of a badly dented rule of law situation do not seem to perturb the electorate much, also because the Labour government’s panem et circenses formula continues to reap a bounty harvest at election-time.
In sharp contrast, the Nationalist Party has suffered yet another – deserved, some might add – drubbing, which, if one wants to be true to oneself, is mainly self-inflicted. It is now evident that as new voters move closer to Labour – for whatever reason – traditional Nationalist supporters are deserting ‘their’ party, as the voting patterns and the ‘We deserve better’ signs that appeared on the main doors of some PN clubs yesterday afternoon clearly show.
Adrian Delia, and his inner circle of aides and advisers, must now assume full responsibility, declare mea culpa and move on. Every additional day they remain in office is a lost opportunity for the PN to start preparing for its next big contest: the general election.
Together with Dr Delia and his closest ‘aides’, the party’s highest organs, not least the parliamentary group, also need to be held accountable. They allowed an evidently rotten situation to deteriorate because they did not want to stand up and be counted.
This is the end of the road for them, too, unless they pluck up the courage and publicly declare enough is enough. Better late than never.
Concluding the electoral campaign last week, Dr Delia said Saturday’s elections would mark the ‘end of the beginning’ for his party. Come Monday, he told a Net TV interviewer, the PN would embark on a fresh process where it would analyse what it had learnt and channel it to its programme for an alternative government.
He borrowed the phrase the ‘end of the beginning’ from Winston Churchill. The British prime minister who had guided his country and the Allies through WWII only to then lose the 1945 election, had made his 1942 speech in London just after the British defeated Erwin Rommel’s forces at Alamein, driving German troops out of Egypt. The battle was a turning point in the war and Churchill noted thus in his memoirs: “Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.”
That certainly is not the situation Dr Delia is facing. He has never had a victory on a national level – he did win the PN leadership race, though – and has suffered a humiliating defeat in his very first attempt.
The people have overwhelmingly declared their support to Dr Muscat and his Labour Party. In the process, they dumped Dr Delia and his Nationalist Party. But so did PN supporters who stayed home on polling day.
This can only be the end for Dr Delia.
This is a Times of Malta print editorial