The PN my generation has never known, but is ready to build | Eve Borg Bonello

The last time the Nationalist Party won an election, I was four years old. My generation has grown up without any tangible memory of what a winning PN, or one in government, looks like.

And whilst this has been horrible for the country, it might, counterintuitively, not be such a bad thing for the party; if we frame it as an opportunity for reinvention. The truth is the PN is at a defining crossroads. We’ve heard that before, but now besides existential, it must now be transformative.

A political party exists to convert aspirations into reality. Parties that don’t change die,

and we have no other option than to “rage, against the dying of the light.”

There are few things I love more than hearing people’s stories, especially from those

who lived through the turbulence of the 1980s. But for people my age, they remain just

that—stories. We struggle to relate, not through lack of empathy, but because they

happened so long ago.

Now, this is not to say those stories don’t matter deeply—they were what first drew me to

PN. They explain where we came from and what shaped us. They taught me PN’s core

identity: Christian-democratic values, free enterprise and European modernisation.

But in politics, the crucial questions are not about the past, but the future. Today’s

problems are many, from housing affordability to accessing healthcare in a timely manner,

and finding ways to adapt to a changing climate. Our solutions must be bold but

realistic. But my generation won’t fight for something they don’t believe in. You must

inspire through hope not shame out of apathy.

Besides relevant politics, the party needs organisational reform. We need to ditch the mentality of an unyielding institution, and adopt the agility of a startup. We must ask the difficult questions, listen and follow evidence with decisive action, especially when this is hard.

History shows this is possible. The US Democratic Party wasn’t reborn solely through

Barack Obama’s charisma, but the ‘50-state solution’ was a total grassroots and organisational revival. Do our party structures that won elections 40 years ago still make sense in 2025? Do our media strategies resonate? Are we offering hope, or just rehashing

outrage?

For instance, my generation doesn’t consume news from papers, but through Instagram reels. That’s not anti-intellectualism, it’s evolution. A press release written like a legal brief no longer cuts through the noise.

Voters don’t care about internal party titles, especially ones that aren’t backed up by hard work. What most voters genuinely care about is the change they can see and feel.

Neither is being a ‘strong opposition’ much of a comfort, because what we owe them is a strong PN government that serves them, especially where Labour has failed miserably.

My worry is that the narratives of the past years have convinced some that our only selling point is that we’re not Labour. That’s not enough. We are so much more than the party that blocks two-thirds votes. Even from Opposition, we legislate. We’ve proposed necessary laws, ignored only because of the side of the isle that they came from. Justice for Jean Paul Sofia has been delivered because of a PN forced motion.

Despite everything, I look at this moment with hope. I still believe in PN’s potential. But

trying to be everything to everyone means that you’re nothing to no one. Jumping from one bandwagon to another does not project an image of a stable government in waiting.

Only by rooting ourselves in clear principles and speaking courageously, will we find our path. We must ensure that this leadership race results in the sweeping reform that must follow after.

Call me an optimist, but I’m excited. I can’t wait to help build what's next: ideas becoming implemented realities, conversations becoming momentum and a whole new generation of leaders. Our destiny is not predetermined: as the authors of our next chapter we have no excuse for not trying. The train for change whose next stop is the future is here, and it’s time to hop on.

Cynicism is easy because it does not require you to try. Instead we must show we’re courageous enough to dream and hope. I believe we can be a young party again, not in terms of the median age of the parliamentary group, but in the energy of every single activist empowered to take the bull by its horns and fight the good fight, not only out of a sense of duty, but out of hope that we can and will win again.