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Karl Schembri
A wave of outrage is building up within the Nationalist Party as diverse factions are feeling increasingly distanced from the party administration a couple of weeks before citizens vote in local elections.
The decision to withdraw from the Zejtun and Marsa elections has led to unprecedented condemnation from well-known Nationalist activists. This is the most strident criticism to be voiced ever in public at the PN leadership by die-hard Nationalists.
For a party where it is not customary to wash dirty linen in public, the last couple of weeks came as a shock as serious divisions between party militants and the secretive inner circle responsible for the most important strategic decisions stole the limelight.
Public statements from Nationalist insiders hint at alienation from the leadership spanning across a spectrum of factions and loyalties, as the party administration, particularly Joe Saliba, is now being questioned.
“Those who were foursquare with Gonzi are no longer necessarily with Saliba,” an executive committee member told MaltaToday. “I wouldn’t define myself as anti-Saliba, but now I have a lot of questions.”
Apart from the harsh criticism by some John Dalli loyalists, other Nationalists well known for their unquestioning support for Lawrence Gonzi are venting their disapproval of the party administration.
Strong criticism
The withdrawal from Marsa and Zejtun has resuscitated the Nationalist spirit, which remembers the legendary confrontation with police and Labour thugs at the Tal-Barrani Road incidents.
The Chairperson of the Housing Authority, Marisa Micallef – a declared admirer of Lawrence Gonzi – wrote last Monday on The Independent that the PN now “seems to be run and managed by a very small closed clique who are either out of touch because they don’t care or have just not realised what a serious credibility problem they have”.
She steers clear of criticising Lawrence Gonzi and her indignation is clearly reserved for the administration led by the PN’s Secretary General.
Entitled “Anger growing, resentment deepening”, her opinion column reflects the Nationalist middle class’s estrangement from the administration, the very segment that was offended by Gonzi’s decision to appoint Eddie Fenech Adami President.
She wrote that the decision to opt out of the Marsa and Zejtun elections “was and is being perceived as badly as the decision to make Eddie President”, adding that the people surrounding Gonzi were doing him a great disservice.
Former PN minister Michael Falzon has similarly dismissed the strategy as “too transparent” and “weak” while Victor Ragonesi, former PN secretary general during the Borg Olivier era, has been urging “all those who really have in their heart the Nationalist spirit” to “stand up and be counted”.
Appealing to Nationalist tradition, Ragonesi wrote: “True Nationalists should continue to voice their feelings. Then, and only then, will the Nationalist spirit survive.”
Executive committee member Frank Zammit said “the surprise decision by a restricted group of people” in the PN to withdraw candidates “was ill-advised and wrong”.
The former Mayor of Marsa and Assistant Personal Secretary to John Dalli until a few months ago, Zammit said he and his PN colleagues were “in pain seeing this party, which has the potential to win yet another national election, resort to measures that go against the essence of our beliefs”.
Michael Mercieca, a PN executive member and candidate in the third district, including Zejtun, complained that he found it “very difficult to explain to constituents any plausible reason for the action taken by the few reigning powers within the so-called strategy group”.
He added that the party has yet to explain its decision to its candidates and that he hoped those responsible for it “will be there to bear the consequences”.
Saliba’s “intelligence”
Last Tuesday’s discussion on Super One TV, which pitted Saliba against his Labour and Alternattiva counterparts, saw the secretary general insisting that withdrawing from Marsa and Zejtun was “an intelligent decision”.
The lacklustre PN electoral campaign is meanwhile being interpreted by some Nationalist executive members as a sign that Saliba intends to downplay an impending electoral defeat, which he has already attempted to contain by reducing the overall percentage of vote losses.
The decision to back out of the two Labour stronghold towns is however feared to backfire as disgruntled Nationalists in other localities are questioning the point of voting when the party they support backed out of elections in the first place.
While the silent majority of the PN electorate does not even consider voting Labour, refusing to cast their ballots would be a statement in itself.
“He cannot hide behind a low voter turnout to downplay the result,” a pessimistic executive member said. “As secretary general Saliba should be shepherding the lost votes and even working to win over Labour supporters. Anything short of that would mean trouble.”
Executive members who are sceptical of Dalli’s loyalists say that should the secretary general be contested in April by “one of Gonzi’s men, Saliba would have a problem”.
The question of how powerful this loose alliance of dissidents may be remains, so far, unclear, though the balance seems to tip against it.
Joe Saliba is known to have consolidated his own base by placing loyalists in strategic party positions.
In the mindframe of the silent insider PN majority, winning elections has always been more important than personal loyalties, and sacrificial lambs were never in short supply in the name of the party.
In his political CV, Saliba has histories of victories and defeats. The last example however saw the PN suffering a humiliating defeat in the European Parliament elections. On the same day, local elections in 22 localities saw the PN dropping support by two per cent over the previous elections in the same councils, garnering only 46.43 per cent of overall votes.
Now, with a negative electoral result taken as a given, whether or not the present inner circle will retain their hold after the 12 March elections will much depend on how far the Nationalists have abandoned “cold logic” for personal loyalties.
karl@newsworksltd.com
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