When Mario Galea, a long-time Nationalist MP, comes out ranting against the party leader, on Facebook of all places, it is an indication that something is fundamentally wrong with the party.
It has nothing to do with washing one’s linen in public. The party has just suffered a terrible electoral drubbing, is in the process of changing its leader and anything that needs to be said should be said now.
But Mr Galea went after Simon Busuttil’s leadership style, called it authoritarian, possibly because over the last four years he felt elbowed by the party. He talks of political experience, of people who have been told to leave and of big-headed newcomers.
The former parliamentary secretary was there when the PN lost the 2013 election. The party needed a radical change already. Clearly, Dr Busuttil was trying to achieve that, in his own way, and was unsuccessful. The election was lost again in June but not for the reasons mentioned by Mr Galea. Within the wider scheme of things, he speaks of ‘trivialities’.
Edwin Vassallo is another MPwho appears to have fallen out with Dr Busuttil, in his case over theissue of gay marriage. He too did not like Dr Busuttil’s leadership style, or his liberal approach. Mr Vassallo is a conservative.
His criticism was ideologically based and went much further than the issue of a free vote in Parliament over matters concerning the conscience. He spoke of party values as he saw them and said the PN’s attempt to portray itself as liberal was to blame for the election defeat.
There was a third critic, Tonio Fenech, also a conservative and he too emphasised the party’s values of old. Dr Busuttil did not reject those values but tried to apply those values to the prevailing political situation. He tried to change the PN, to adopt to the new realities. His successor will have very much the same task, only this time it may even be harder.
The issue that has to be kept in mind is that nothing of what Dr Busuttil stood for at the election is something the party should discard. That was the party’s platform, not Dr Busuttil’s. His uncompromising stand on corruption lies at the basis of what the party stands for.
The anti-corruption stand didnot sell but that does not make the value of good governance wrong. Itis at the heart of many of the country’s problems.
Coming out now with old grudges, when the interim leader is weak, does not show maturity or openness buta party in apparent war with itself. Everything sounds so petty andself-centred, ignoring the brutal election defeat.
The PN failed not because its leader did not listen to people from within but to people from without. If anything, the accusations made against Dr Busuttil just show what sort of character he was. He was no weakling. He stuck to his values before and after the election.
Now party stalwarts are coming out with arguments of internal party disorder, of lack of communication and lack of appreciation of experienced people. They would not have said that if the party won. These are symptoms, not the cause.
The PN is coming across as a party in existential chaos and in search of a reason.