Aaron Farrugia, Parliamentary Secretary for EU Funds and Social Dialogue
2017 has been a big year in Maltese politics given that last June’s election resulted in a historic second term landslide Labour victory. Later on, Adrian Delia was elected as leader of the Nationalist Party.
After a second consecutive defeat, it should be clear to the PN that their main problem is with their message – not the messenger.
Since June, I have been listening to people to talk about why Labour won the election with such a huge margin and it’s clear a big factor is that people feel that while the Labour government stood up for working and middle classes, the PN has lost touch with the families and hard-working people we are in politics to represent.
As Joseph Muscat has shown, earning the trust of the country means listening to people’s ambitions for the future; to their hopes as well as their fears and concerns. Asking questions about how we grow our economy and make sure there are good jobs in the future, how we strengthen families, communities and relationships, how we put power over politics and public services in people’s hands and how we secure our country and contribute to a better world.
What the Labour Party has managed to do under Muscat’s leadership is come up with a vision that suits the whole country. What this means effectively, is that a movement was built whereby working class people felt comfortable working with upper-middle class people who in the past, formed the grassroots and base of the Nationalists.
The personnel changes at the top of the PN won’t help when the party is so distant and remote from modern Malta
I do not believe the new PN leadership is capable of answering these big questions. Delia is offering more of the same failed rhetoric that was rejected in June. The PN is not offering a new, fresh agenda that is focused on creating a fairer place for people who are trying to carve out a decent life for themselves and their families. The Nationalist Party needs to stand up for something. During the past legislature, and even more so after Delia’s election as party leader, all the PN has stood for is being anti-Labour. The Opposition does not have a vision for the country, which is why they are performing very poorly in the polls.
The personnel changes at the top of the PN won’t help when the party is so distant and remote from modern Malta.
The PN is wrought with infighting, incapable of changing its policy platform to focus on reaching out to the public, reconnecting with the lives of people with whom they lost touch.
Delia does not have the support and authority among his own MPs to undertake a comprehensive process looking at every aspect of the PN policy platform to develop a programme for government ahead of the next general election.
Right now, the Opposition is split into three factions. There are those who are standing behind Delia, there are others who still categorise Simon Busuttil as the leader of the Opposition, and then there are Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia, who were elected on the Nationalist Party ticket but insist on representing the Democratic Party.
But what do the people of this country want?
They want Malta to be a place where people can be hopeful of a better future, not worried about their own security and the prospects for their kids. But as well as looking ahead this cannot simply be a chance to sit back and think about the future. The people rightly want us to stand up for them right now. Thus, if Delia wants to improve the situation that his party is in, the first things he has to do is both assert his leadership and also build a platform where people who come from different backgrounds can work together in harmony. So far, that has not been a success.
Mark Anthony Sammut, president of the Executive Committee of The Nationalist Party
The new leadership of the Nationalist Party has three major challenges to face: resolving the party’s identity question; building a successful and popular political programme with a strong narrative and marketing it effectively; and strengthening its financial situation.
This will not be an easy task, but neither is it an impossible challenge.
First of all, we need to clearly define what the Nationalist Party stands for. A vague definition within the liberal-conservative spectrum is not enough. We need to start from the values which unite us: human dignity, liberty, equality, rule of law, solidarity, subsidiarity, and define what these mean to us in contemporary terms. We also have to show how our positions contrast with what Labour has been doing in government.
The PN needs to show it has completely shed its perception of an elitist party, where politicians look down on you and where your concerns fall on deaf ears
This development should not happen in a vacuum, but in a process of dialogue within all party structures, and with the backdrop of a properly commissioned sociological study to help us understand better the changes in our society.
This should also help us answer the morality question. Along the years the Nationalist Party has always been less homogenous than Labour, in the sense that its voters have always been a wider spectrum of people with different beliefs. In that sense PN has to regain the centrist ground, and rather than react to whatever the government proposes next, have clear directions while keeping open to proposals, different views and even allow parliamentary free votes. These decisions, however, should not be taken by the parliamentary group alone. The statute demands such decisions be taken by the party’s executive committee, where MPs and representatives from all the party’s committees and branches discuss and deliberate. And as the current leader Adrian Delia had already promised during his leadership campaign, this has to happen in a bottom-up approach, not a top-down imposing manner.
The new way is not just about explaining our values and beliefs. We need to explain how these are going to improve our economic situation, make our quality of life better, create better jobs for our children and improve our healthcare and social welfare. Ultimately, people want to know how our policies can improve their lives.
The biggest change the new leadership needs to deliver is a change in mentality. The Nationalist Party needs to show it has completely shed its perception of an elitist party, where politicians look down on you and where your concerns fall on deaf ears.
We have to completely rebrand ourselves as a new, inclusive, fresh, young, customer-oriented party, where each individual is given his due importance by the politician rather than the other way round.
The new leadership team is properly set to do this. As a starter, it is no longer made up solely of lawyers, but now includes a well-balanced mix of different individuals with mixed backgrounds and professional careers, including also a 31-year-old and other young, new faces. This has been sorely lacking in the past years.
This leads me to the final point: the importance of ensuring the training and preparation of new, upcoming politicians. Ażad is a treasure the party neglected for too long, and this is reflected by the lack of young MPs in the Nationalist Party’s parliamentary line-up. It is time this school of thought and politics is given the importance it deserves to be a constant nursery of new ideas and upcoming leaders.
The mountain to climb is big, but the motivation to do it is bigger. It must be because our responsibility is huge. Our party deserves it and our country deserves it more.
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