News • 23 March 2003

The PN has many cards to play

Matthew Vella says the PN team will not be a new exciting one, but it is one with plenty of experience and talent

Herbert Ganado, Pieta - It would seem that Labour’s referendum tactic has worked well. It certainly stinks of anti-democracy, opportunism and the unmistakable mixture of pseudo-socialism and right-wing populism. But Sant has managed to harden the Labour core and re-instil courage and determination in his party.

This means panic for the Nationalist Party. The ‘yes’ bloc championed by the PN, which successfully clinched the EU referendum, will have to make do without the Alternattiva Demokratika voters. In the current circumstances, this may add up to a couple of thousands, since it is expected a number of AD voters will defect to the Nationalist Party.

Secondly, Sant has erased the EU issue from Labour’s agenda, and with it the partnership option. Labour is now concentrating on the issues that affect this country with the slogan Futur Ahjar – L-Ewwel Int (A better future – Putting you first) to the consternation of a tired Nationalist legislation, aching for a much-needed cabinet reshuffle.

The PN is fighting to consolidate the ‘yes’ vote that prevailed in the EU referendum, keeping with it any pro-EU Labourites that Sant is out to fish back, and any Nationalist voters who abstained or voted against EU membership at the referendum.

In a throwback to 1996, Sant is once again the PN’s direct target. From the Ma Tistax Tafdah slogan (You cannot trust him), Sant is now pictured as a threat to the country’s stability, embodied in the slogan Sant irid ifarrak pajjiz – Thalliehx (Sant wants to destroy this country – Don’t let him).

Nowhere in sight are billboards picturing a rosy future under five more years of Nationalist government, except takes on previous PN ‘IVA’ billboards. The EU issue remains at the core of the PN’s electoral campaign.

The party’s mainstay logo has not changed drastically. A blue backdrop couples the IVA logo with ‘PN’, a Maltese flag bridging the two keywords.

‘Xoghol, Gid, Serjeta’’(Work, Wealth, Seriousness) is reminiscent of the PN’s 1986 slogan to salvation ‘Xoghol, Gustizzja u Liberta’’(Work, Justice and Liberty).

But with Sant having burst the bubble of the referendum winners, the positive vibe of the pro-EU camp has been hampered by what is being predicted as one of the closest elections ever.

It now remains to be seen whether the prophetic Ma Tistax Tafdah, pre-empting 22 months of an unfinished Labour administration, can be avenged. Sant’s bitter aftertaste has been felt by all Maltese, but is the 1996-1998 malaise still fresh enough in people’s minds?

The PN has many cards to play, but it would seem incapable of playing them or is biding time for the final run-in. Malta is not in the EU but already there has been administrative progress in certain areas. Issues left on the back burner, like the environment, have now become topics of discussion and the PN needs to relate what impacts EU membership is already having on our everyday lives.

Back in 1996, Alfred Sant set out to create a hegemonic bloc under a new vision and a new Labour Party, rid of all Mintoffian elements. The novelty won. The PN have now completed a relatively decent legislation, which struggled somewhat to survive the MLP’s accusations of corruption, and other criticism of environmental incompetence.

The question is whether doubts over Sant’s leadership, and now the people know him only too well, will prevail and secure the PN electoral victory?

For the PN, the key seems to lie in deflecting attention away from the party, and there are a few good reasons for doing that. The PN is fighting an MLP that is relatively young and new, having recruited lots of new candidates into its fold, despite some of them being unlikely backbenchers to say the least. A ‘new’ PN cabinet, however, is likely to remain the same collection of politicos. A ministerial re-shuffle a few months ago would have meant drawing blood for the PN, but obviously the leadership had other ideas.

The PN team will not be a new exciting one, but it is one with plenty of experience and talent. The PN needs to market those talents in the coming weeks, otherwise it faces failure and with it the EU dream will go up in smoke.

Fenech Adami’s plea for forgiveness from what he rightly perceives as a disgruntled electorate, is also symptomatic of the Nationalist Party’s state of mind. Arrogance was widely perceived as one of the PN’s faults when 1996 saw it lose the general election to Sant’s New Labour. In 1998, the PN plastered the island with billboards signalling it had ‘learnt the lesson’ (Tghallimna l-lezzjoni).

Fenech Adami’s brazen plea is an easy gesture for a government seeking re-election. However, saying sorry twice, will have to cut a now hard-nosed electorate.

matthew@maltamag.com