ANALYSIS | PN at a crossroads: The narrow ideological choice

After being the first elected leader in the PN’s history to be dethroned mid-way in a legislature and denied the chance to lead his party in a national election, Adrian Delia is set to make history again. 

He will be the first candidate to contest the leadership for a third time and is the first former party leader to attempt a return to the top job.  

Yet, the Adrian Delia of today is not the same person he was in 2017 when he emerged as an outsider and insurgent, voicing the concerns of party die-hards who felt marginalised by an out-of-touch party establishment. 

Over the past five years, Delia’s internal standing was solidified by his legal victory in the Vitals case, which dispelled previous insinuations that he was Labour’s Trojan horse. Many in the party have come to realise that his dethronement was a strategic mistake, which left his successor limping amidst lingering resentment that cost the party thousands of votes in the 2022 election. 

Ironically, this time around, Delia’s best path to victory is to present himself as a stabiliser and pacifier who can hold the party’s centre ground. Someone who is considered ‘safe’ and who can minimise losses in the next election, possibly paving the way for a new leader after that. This strategy keeps alive the hope that Roberta Metsola would eventually pick up the pieces after the next election. 

Still, much depends on whether MPs who opposed Delia when he was leader, are ready to bury the hatchet, or whether they will rally behind Alex Borg as the only alternative on the ticket. 

Within these circumstances Delia’s sheer determination and ability to fall and come back cannot be underestimated. 

2017 vs 2025 

Delia faces a crucial question: What does he stand for in 2025 and how has he evolved since 2017? 

It is not a fickle query since between 2017 and 2020, Delia did try to give the party a new identity away from his predecessor Simon Busuttil’s narrow focus on corruption. Delia tried to steer the PN onto a more conservative platform, going as far as voting against the transposition of the Istanbul Convention on domestic violence (because it omitted a reference to the unborn child) and trying to turn the 2019 European election into a ‘referendum’ on abortion, while harping about the influx of foreigners. 

It is still unclear whether today’s Delia is more of the same, or whether he is willing to act as a paternal figure, co-opting a new and diverse generation hailing from the different wings of the party. 

For whom is the establishment rooting? 

Faced with the challenge of another relative outsider (Alex Borg) hailing from the same conservative wing, Delia’s path to internal victory now depends on winning party centrists who may fear a lurch to the right, which can become more entrenched under a young dynamic leader like Borg. Indeed, Borg being young and fresh may be in a better position to entrench the changes he wants to enact. Yet, Borg may well be the fallback choice of a rattled party establishment which fears another Delia term. 

Labour strategists have understood this and are pushing the narrative that the PN establishment is rallying around Borg to defeat Delia, hoping that this will leave a residue of bitterness among Delia’s cohort of supporters. If this bitterness lingers it would benefit the PL in the next general election.  

Moreover, while Labour portrays the PN establishment as a group of “extremist” MPs backing NGOs like Repubblika, one should not forget the existence of a more transversal and powerful establishment backed by big influential donors. This latter group could tilt the balance for a more pro-business PN leader. Moreover, a bankrupt party like the PN may be particularly vulnerable to a take-over by these interests.   

A lurch to the right? 

What is sure is that a contest restricted between Borg and Delia narrows the choice to one between two conservatives. The main difference is that Delia has been tried and tested while Borg is relatively unknown. This contrasts with the 2013 contest in which Simon Busuttil defined himself as ‘centrist’ while Mario de Marco pushed for a centre-left alternative to Labour. 

Judging by his track record, Borg leans to the right—after all he preferred Donald Trump to Joe Biden because he is “pro-business”.  Along with Adrian Delia and Ivan Bartolo he had also voted against amendments in an IVF law that allows genetic testing on embryos in 2022. He also voted for the Fort Chambray concession and supported a planning permit which envisages the demolition and partial relocation of the British barracks. 

Borg was also recently invited to a conservative gathering in London organised by Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), which was addressed by right-wing guru Jordan Peterson, Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy, and Kevin Roberts, the president of the US Heritage Foundation. This raises questions on whether Borg represents a break with the party’s centrist ideology, which has characterised it since the late 1970s when, under the guidance of Louis Galea and Peter Serracino Inglott, the party moved leftwards. 

But party strategists may look at the way the wind is blowing on a global level, where politics has shifted decisively to the populist right. Moreover, Borg’s pro-business stance represents continuity with PN governance in the 1990s and early 2000s, when various concessions on public land, including Fort Chambray, were granted to the private sector. They may even think that someone like Borg could ultimately create cracks in Labour’s coalition, which includes a dormant, socially conservative wing. 

This may even result in a major realignment in Maltese politics, with the PN bidding a final farewell to the liberal and environmentalist vote, vacating that space to Momentum or ADPD, while actively courting those elements in Labour who find their party too liberal. But so far, neither Borg nor Delia are clearly articulating this sentiment. While Delia’s central message now is that he has evolved and can unite the party behind him, Borg is emulating Joseph Muscat’s aspirational slogans, including his “winning generation” catchphrase that characterised his own leadership bid in 2008. But crucially, Borg is forgetting that Muscat also inspired his “movement of moderates and progressives” by taking a stance on contentious issues like divorce and suggesting a more liberal direction. They were slogans built on substance. 

Tribe leader or future PM?  

But pending a late surprise candidature (the expression of interest closes on Sunday 29 June at 2pm) by Franco Debono—who may bring his pet issues to the table—or a candidature from the party’s more centrist wing, the PN faces a narrow ideological choice between a throwback trying to reinvent himself as a voice of unity, and a relatively charismatic but unpredictable outsider who may change his party beyond recognition. 

The paradox is that party members, who tend to be the most tribal and fanatical supporters, have the responsibility of electing the leader best placed to communicate with floating voters, former non-voters, potential third-party voters, and new voters. 

The most successful candidates tend to be those who can reach across the political divide, not those who are inward-looking. But to get there, candidates have to win over a restricted cohort of flag-waving, inward-looking party members. No wonder both Delia and Borg have started their campaign appealing to this restricted cohort. But they also owe it to the nation to explain what they stand for in terms of policy, ideology, and vision.