Lawrence Gonzi’s unpopularity, as confirmed in our survey today, will not lead to any spontaneous revolt within the Nationalist party, unless someone, even just one parliamentarian, plucks up some courage to confront him. If nothing happens within the Nationalist ranks today, Gonzi will lose the next election. And mark my words: the beating at the polls will be so disproportionate that it will take another 15 years for anyone to uproot Muscat from Castille. In 20 years’ time I will be 66 and Muscat 50, and I would not be too surprised if the PN was somewhere in the wilderness.
If the GonziPN clan choose to rubbish today’s survey, they are free to do so. But since our surveys kicked off in 2005, we have never faltered.
The fact that no one from the Nationalist backbench has had the gall to stand up and be counted is curious to say the least. The fact that none of them have the testicles to do something, instead of grumbling behind people’s back, is remarkable.
When Franco Debono badmouthed his own government, the one singular response to this was an invitation to accompany the Prime Minister to New York. Gee, what a treat!
In today’s newspaper, an interview with former leadership contender John Dalli points towards a potential replacement for Gonzi. The question is: will Dalli take Gonzi’s bait and settle in Brussels, or will he stay on to lead the Nationalist party?
At 61 (and that is his age tomorrow), Dalli is still not someone without ambition. More so, despite all the attempts to erase him, he has ploughed on.
Whether he wishes to take on Gonzi is of course another question. This time round, if he decides to refuse the Commissioner’s job and stay on to fight for the leadership, no one can accuse him of opting for an easy choice. To become a captain of a sinking ship is not exactly the most intelligent thing to do.
And then, let’s face it, it would be a great tragedy for mankind if the next Commissioner were not Richard Cachia Caruana...
Many Nationalists have recently realised that Dalli could have easily done a better job than Gonzi. After all these years, they have come to realise that Gonzi has destroyed the party that was created by Fenech Adami.
All the adulatory sessions suggesting that Gonzi was the next best thing to an afternoon with a Royal Saudi harem have turned out to be a complete joke. Gonzi has one great asset, and that is his great capability of having turned the party into an impregnable GonziPN tribe, governed by loyalists and lackeys best represented by Edgar Galea Curmi, Gordon Pisani and ruthless young upstarts such as Tonio Fenech and George Pullicino.
So self-centred is this GonziPN that one need only visit the official government website for the Prime Minister. The portal link for his wife Catherine or Kate Gonzi comes before the workings of government. Yes, before the workings of government. No wonder everyone believes that it is she who runs the Prime Minister’s office.
When Smart City CEO Claudio Grech resigned only days ago – even though he denied he would be doing so time and time again – the public in general could not have believed that all the solemn declarations were just a convoluted form of super hype and sweet talk emanating mostly from Gonzi and Austin Gatt in the days before the last election.
Hardly two years ago, Smart City was portrayed as the saviour of the Maltese economy, as the thing that would send us into the Premier League of super-economies. Today, all the warnings that Smart City was a white elephant have been reconfirmed by Grech’s sudden resignation, the same man who was Austin Gatt’s personal assistant and who runs the sensitive ‘security and data centre’ for government.
The same young man who negotiated the sale of public land to the Dubai investors, and later found himself in the highly paid Smart City job... denying that there was something unethical about the whole damn thing.
As Smart City was being launched, we were faced with countless hand on heart declarations about the promised increase in employment and the transformation of our Island to one of excellence and IT. Any suggestion from the sceptics that Smart City was a simple exercise in real estate was strongly denied. The agencies that were paid to market Smart City were the first to seduce journalists into thinking the contrary.
But then, how many times have people said one thing and done another?
Bill Clinton once claimed that he had never had anything to do with Monica Lewinsky, and survived. Gonzi has promised no such thing, but his endless list of promises have a Clintonian shade to them.
Austin Gatt was at the forefront of this great deception. The fact that he is so sure of himself provides him with an immunological kit against all form of criticism. I am not impressed. The days of macho mintoffian politics are not on anymore.
And in the background to all this we had Joe Saliba, who now has an exclusive and smart consultancy service with real big business in Malta. Saliba, when still PN secretary-general, hijacked the Smart City name and attached it to the Independence Day celebrations organised by the PN before the last general election.
Any suggestion he was confusing State with party was shrugged off, and all the critics were described as wet blankets. All the Prime Minister could do was smile. Which is what he does consistently and repeatedly, most frequently on the front page of In-Nazzjon: a newspaper followed by a bunch of delirious zealots who have not quite realised what a state their party is in.
We have a whole load of other people who have gone all weak at the knees over Smart City. Many individuals wilfully lent their visage to Smart City adverts. Noel Grima – former editor of the Independent on Sunday, but later kicked upstairs as ‘Editor in Chief’ by Joe Said – was among the first to eagerly lend his face to a whole set of adverts. I guess one has to have a great personality to get pasted on pro-government marketing drives, and then kicked upstairs.
Just like Jason Micallef, the former secretary-general of the Labour Party who was kicked upstairs by Joseph Muscat. Micallef, like most other politicians who think they own the future, had become too big for his boots, so he was given a boot of the other kind.
As he took over his office at Super One for the utterly useless job of Chairman, he took with him his lieutenant Charlon Gouder, the political ventriloquist who has always obeyed his master’s voice.
Politics is all about the moment.
Politics is about seizing the moment.
If anyone with any sense had any respect for this country and the work of others, they would seize the moment. The future of this country has nothing to do with the egocentrism and narrow mindedness of Gonzi and his tribe.
If seizing the moment means making a clean sweep, then so be it.
But if all these groaners and grumblers decide to do f*** all and just stay at home, they should not concern themselves if this country continues to be the fiefdom of big businesses and the usual players in the media world.
If you want to change, forget about miracles and go for it.
Change is all about action, and guess what? Action is all about taking decisions.
Last note Last Sunday, Natalino Fenech, the political appointee who heads PBS news for the likes of Claire Thake Vassallo, chose to quote MaltaToday. It suited Dr Fenech’s purpose, which was to hit out at Marisa. So he chose to quote MaltaToday. In a previous altercation with PBS, Fenech usurped PBS news and spent four solid minutes hitting out at MaltaToday. He suggested that since we had lost a libel to all people to Albert Mizzi we could not be taken seriously. I wonder what has changed.
Like Bertu Mizzi in the eighties, who was called all sort of names by Fenech Adami and later welcomed in the family, Natalino shows great disposition to change tack when it suits him. Pity individuals like Vassallo Thake and Joe Pirotta, two political appointees renowned for their political leanings, feel so comfortable with the nuances of Dr Natalino Fenech.
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And mark my words: the beating at the polls will be so disproportionate that it will take another 15 years for anyone to uproot Muscat from Castille. In 20 years’ time I will be 66 and Muscat 50, and I would not be too surprised if the PN was somewhere in the wilderness. 
