It was last Friday, during a plenary session of the General Council, when I fully confirmed that the Nationalist Party is still very much relevant to our community and can, once more, be a catalyst for our people in their quest to keep modernising our country, but at the same time safeguarding the best values for which we stand, for us and for future generations.

At one point during that session, I informed the council who was the next speaker. A 16-year-old girl sprang to her feet and went straight to the podium. She spoke forcefully in front of a varied audience made up of veterans, men, women and young new members.  

She made an impassioned appeal to people of her age, and even younger, to join the newly-formed Team Start at the PN, intended to cater for youths from 14 years upwards. At that moment she embodies fully the present situation at the PN, a transitional one, which aims to carry forward the best attributes our party gathered throughout its chequered history, while endeavouring to upgrade its operation in the supreme interest of the Maltese people.

For a full week, I had the privilege to preside over activities in connection with the general council, both on a regional and national level. This was our first council for 2019, the one which according to our statute, is exclusively reserved to look inwards and examine how we are managing our potential with the tools we have but, more importantly, to better these tools and where and when it is needed, to provide adequate answers to new situations arising in our society.

Having seen this year’s general council from such a close range, I can honestly say that I very much admire a substantial number of people, from every age and section of the population, contributing their energy selflessly and altruistically, in the face of a very challenging situation which elicits from us all an all-out effort.

That is why we at the PN are presently very much enthused and very much appreciative about this new section, Team Start, which was a natural offspring of the future leaders initiative, which the PN and particularly secretary general Clyde Puli, launched last year, and which, modestly, I reckon was an instant success.

The Future Leaders programme was organised in collaboration with AŻAD, our political academy, and under the guidance of Charlò Bonnici, himself an ex-PN member of Parliament, and with the input of other present and past PN personalities, among whom is former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi, and former PN secretary general Louis Galea, who himself was already a protagonist in our party’s turnaround in the 1970s even as secretary general of MŻPN, our youth branch.

We at the PN are presently very much enthused and appreciative about this new section, Team Start

A good number of youths coming out of Future Leaders addressed the general council and they really succeeded to impress both with the contents of their speeches and also with the way they managed to drive home their arguments in an effective and tangible manner.

This experience of Future Leaders, instrumental in the establishment of Team Start, is still going forward and the next step consists of having all those in the programme – more than 60 of them – ‘assigned’ to established PN politicians and officials on an individual basis and so be mentored by experienced hands.

One last thing I would like to add regarding this new initiative at PN.

Perhaps coincidentally, a week before our general council, also on a Friday, both our party and the Labour Party had activities addressed specifically to our youths.

The PN had the formal establishment of this Team Start, open to youths from 14 years upwards, and the Labour Party its annual general meeting of the Forum Żgħażagħ Laburisti, its youth movement.

It is relevant to point out that according to media reports, during this meeting Joseph Muscat said “the age to join Forum Żgħażagħ Laburisti and the Labour Party should be at 14”.

At that same time, PN leader Adrian Delia was welcoming this new section in the structures of the party, having prepared for it for nearly a full year.

In politics it is of the essence to be ahead of time, and more importantly, ahead of your political opponents. A case in point, if ever there was one.

Martin Luther King used to say that our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant, and to face the challenge of change. How very true.


I would like to express my appreciation for the excellent piece written by Joe Zahra, former editor of In-Nazzjon Tagħna and a party veteran, in this paper ‘Turning the Tide Together’ (February 22).

It is with people like Zahra and plenty others, that the PN succeeded to survive for nearly 140 years. Their experience, coupled with the determination and enthusiasm of new blood as explained above, are the guarantee that our party will remain steadfast to its basic values, ready ‘to face the challenge of change’ for many more years in the sole interest of Malta and its people.

Kristy Debono is an MP and president of the Nationalist Party general council.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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