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The ‘business as usual’ approach in the upcoming PN executive meeting following last weekend’s harrowing defeat at the local council elections will be best characterised by the lack of priority afforded to the ‘local council election’ discussion on the agenda.
No special mention of a report or a major discussion has been awarded to the local council election results, standing low in the agenda for the PN’s next executive meeting. It is expected that the item will be dominated by a technical presentation on the local council elections with no deep analysis of the result.
But the apparent ploy will be finding no quarter from former finance minister John Dalli. Whilst refusing to comment on the proceedings of the executive council, Dalli stated to MaltaToday in no uncertain terms that the time had come for serious discussions to take place and for people to take responsibility and be accountable for the electoral defeat.
“Party activists are being treated as people with no intelligence. And it is evident that there are those who are unwilling to raise and discuss the issue because it reflects directly on their position in the party.”
When asked whether he was referring to PN secretary-general Joe Saliba, Mr Dalli answered: “Yes. This is the second election round that Saliba has been responsible for, and this is the second crushing defeat that the Nationalist Party has suffered. The non-campaign that we had in these elections, and the stupid campaign we had in June last year has shown the limits of the present party administration.
“Our party deserves better. Joe Saliba and his cohort preferred to concentrate on administrative changes to the statute which would strengthen their own position within the party and did not give a hoot for the party weakening its position in the country. This is unacceptable.”
Since the party leadership contest in March of last year, relations between the two men have been strained, with Mr Dalli visibly irate at the way he was treated by the party administration during and after the leadership contest.
Former Santa Venera mayor and PN veteran Michael Caruana also spoke to MaltaToday about his great disappointment at the election results: “I just hope that this discussion doesn’t just happen within the party behind closed doors, as happened with the discussion about the European Parliament election defeat last year.”
Caruana was referring to the fact the European Parliamentary election analysis was carried out by Godfrey Grima and had not been made known to party insiders.
He continued: “I know a commission was entrusted with an analysis report but nobody know its conclusions. The party should publish that report, and I hope they carry out a similar analysis now and make the results public, even about Santa Venera. Let’s discuss these issues now before it gets too late.” (see full interview on page 13)
In the meantime, the PN has called on all of its unelected candidates in the last general election to discuss the PN’s situation and its future. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, 5 April. Unsuccessful candidates are expected to discuss the situation in the party with secretary-general Joe Saliba.
“We needed this local elections beating to start discussing something,” one PN candidate said bitterly. “I don’t know what they were waiting for.”
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