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Karl Schembri
They called it “General Conference” but last Friday night’s session could have just as well been called “General Nationalist Gardening Tips Conference”, as extended metaphors and agricultural allegories filled the air of the New Dolmen Hotel conference room packed with PN councillors.
Secretary General Joe Saliba set the imagery as he mimicked a rural preacher giving advice about the ecological chain leading to fruit hanging on the trees, which would then be collected by diligent farmers, who in the meantime have to do away with the weed.
“We have to separate the wheat from the chaff,” Saliba said in his Biblical reference out of Matthew 3:12 and out of the Dictionary of Clichés.
Then came his revelation: “The PN lost three consecutive elections in one year because the Prime Minister was working very hard.”
“What led to these three defeats?” Saliba asked. “I say the reason is Lawrence Gonzi’s courage… and hard work.”
One should not expect words of thanks in the season of hard work, Saliba continued. General elections are, after all, only held once every five years.
So the party’s hard work is making it lose elections, but still speakers after Saliba insisted the party was not spreading the word enough about the ongoing work for the good of the country.
It’s the season to till the land, according to Saliba, and only after all the hard work in the fields, in the scorching sun and devastating rain, will the fruits and vegetables shine in our political countryside and everyone will vote PN again.
Will they? The speakers following Saliba did not really question that although Edwin Vassallo did appeal to the party to listen to the people amid a bunch of sycophantic speeches lauding the glorious party and even more metaphors.
“We need some humility in this party,” the parliamentary secretary said.
Michael Mercieca said he agreed that the party was defeated because it worked hard but this was still of concern to him.
Of a different opinion was Parliamentary Secretary Tony Abela, the overweight, unshaven Rabat Notary who is in charge of the Armed Forces and supported John Dalli in the leadership contest: “We’ll follow you even with our eyes closed,” he told Lawrence Gonzi.
PN Councillor Manwel Saliba took the secretary general’s cue and followed him in green pastures.
“Our tree is about to bear its fruit… but now there are also weeds (haxix hazin) growing around it… we have to eradicate those weeds,” he said.
PN councillors were meanwhile humbly forming a long queue to vote for their executive committee, possibly to eradicate the weeds from their party core, some of them visibly angered by the disorganisation. By 8.30pm, when the voting was supposed to be closed, not all 750 councillors present had cast their ballot so the polling time had to be extended.
Herbert Messina Ferrante complained about the bad press that the party is getting, “particularly on the Sunday papers,” he said in an alarmed tone. The answer to that would be more propaganda, according to the dentist from H’Attard.
“We have to spread the party’s message,” he said.
What message? Towards the end, thanks to Deputy Leader Tonio Borg, it became clearer and clearer. It’s a message of self-laudatory applause for all the good things that the party in government has managed to achieve – basically surfacing roads and getting lots of EU funding – with a streak of proud Christian fundamentalism and the usual attack on Labour.
“We don’t mind being called fundamentalists because we inspire ourselves by Christian teachings,” Borg then said out of the blue. “We’ve always protected the family and life before birth, and that’s what we’ll keep doing.”
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