Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1124848
16 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 JUNE 2019 INTERVIEW It has been a disastrous election for the Nationalist Party. What should the next step be? The very first thing we have to do is simply take stock of the reality that comes out of the electoral result. In all hon- esty, the line that the party took, when faced with this re- sult, took me completely by surprise. It was along the lines that, 'yes, it's a bad result… but not as bad as the surveys had predicted'. First of all, when these surveys were coming out, we always used to say – and I think it was a sensible line to take – that the 'ultimate sur- vey', is the election result itself. Now, the result is out. Objectively, these are the facts: it is the worst electoral defeat we've had, as a party, since immediately after the war. For the first time in quite a number of years, we also seem to have gone below that famous '40%' threshold that defines our core vote. The PN's core vote has always been less than Labour's: composed of different types of people, per- haps; but 40% was always the mark. And now, we've dropped below it. So with all due respect, I can- not understand how the party could react by saying, 'It's not as bad as the Torca survey pre- dicted'. At the risk of repeating an old cliché: any electoral re- sult is a message. So, the very first thing we have to do, is see what is behind this very em- phatic result. What is the message? Is it a sign that, despite all the good intentions in the world, Adrian [Delia] is not reaching out to the various categories – old people, young people, etc – to get them back? And not only that, but we have also failed to consolidate, or at least keep in- tact, our core vote? Is it a sign of how people reacted to our electoral campaign…? What did you yourself make of the PN's campaign in this election? To be fair, each campaign has its own pluses and mi- nuses. But I simply could not understand why we had to say that this was a 'referendum on abortion' – when it was abso- lutely not – with all the impli- cations of falling entirely into Labour's hands. It suggests we were completely detached from electoral reality. Let's face it: in European elections, we've always been thrashed, more or less. So, knowing that it was likely to be a defeat – it was only ever a matter of by how much – I would never, in a million years, have said that this was a 'ref- erendum on abortion'. Because to anyone who has an anti- abortion platform, that does the worst disservice possible. Another thing was the un- happy way we brought across what was otherwise a very good electoral pledge by the EPP: that of significantly increas- ing cancer research funds, and – perhaps more importantly, co-ordinating pan-European research. But we should never have brought that across as: 'vote Nationalist, and we'll solve cancer for you'. To peo- ple and families affected by cancer, it's just not the sort of message you want to hear. So, what was the message from the electorate? Are peo- ple telling us, 'Listen: get your bloody act together?' Is that how you are interpreting the message? I think it's a clear indication that Nationalists are telling us to get our act together, yes. The sort of things I hear from people are that they're sick and tired of all the public fighting on Facebook; they want us all to get in a room, iron out our differences, and get our bloody act together. On the other hand, it could also be a message that people are quite happy as they are. Things are doing well in a number of sec- tors; people seem to be con- tent with a number of situa- tions. Therefore, they are not expressing what one might think is a justified reaction to certain excesses – which there definitely are. That could be a message, too. Which also means that we would have to come back with one hell of an answer. We would need one hell of a communication strategy, to get people moved enough to get them out of this comfort zone. We have to offer a vision, something the people can believe in. But everything has to begin by acknowledging that, objec- tively, it was a terrible result. The worst defeat since the war. That, on its own, means we can't afford to say: 'We don't need to analyse the result. We don't need to bring in the best minds possible; we don't need experts to tell us what to do.' Above all, we can't say, 'We will go to the people' again. We just went to the people. They just gave us a very emphatic message. To 'go to the people' again, would be to ignore that message. The election of Roberta Metsola and David Casa has been interpreted as an act of defiance against the party leadership. Do you agree with that assessment? The fact that a number of people have publicly stated that they did this… i.e., that they felt the need to 'reward', so to speak, Roberta and David for their work; and that they also felt that did not want to vote for the rest of the party… that is, first and foremost, very painful to me. I may be con- servative in the way we were brought up; but from the first election, I always filled in all the PN boxes, to make sure no vote is lost. So, for someone who is a staunch Nationalist Party supporter – if you can even use the word 'staunch' anymore – to say that publicly, sends a message in itself. It's a message we have to heed. As for those two MEPs' work in the European Parliament: I must say I absolutely do not subscribe to Labour's attempts to tarnish Roberta and David's reputation. It's never easy to stand up for what one feels is right. You have to have cour- age to do it. But if anyone's causing harm to this country, it's the present government. No amount of economic pros- perity, or money in people's pockets, will conceal the fact that our reputation has been tarnished. I work a lot with financial services; and even from my small legal office, I see the damage that has been done. I see the figures that will never appear in any statistics: the work we are losing because of our tarnished reputation. Some of it had to do with Daphne Caruana Galizia's as- sassination, which had an enormous resonance around the world. But it isn't only be- cause of that. It's also because of the culture of impunity. Let's be honest about this: part of it is cultural. We have to admit this. We are small; if I don't know you person- ally, I know your parents, your brother, your sister, your dog or your cat… so we all tend to somehow accept this culture of wanting a clientelistic gov- ernment ['gvern li jaqdi']. But that doesn't mean there isn't the rule of law. The minute we send out the message, from the highest authority, that the rule of law depends on who you are, or whom you know… Yet all the rule of the law issues you mention (and raised by the PACE report, among others) were there before 2013. And as various election results have now shown, the people simply don't trust the PN to tackle these issues. Isn't that also a message from the electorate? I understand that sentiment. Neither party can lay any claim to sanctity, or to immaculate correctness. We have long- term changes to make in the fabric [of our system], and per- haps past Nationalist govern- ments could have done more. But the urgency today is differ- ent. There are two sides to this: Former leadership contestant ALEX PERICI CALASCIONE issues a dire warning to his own Nationalist Party. The people have delivered a final warning: the PN must get its act together, now 'Let's get our act together' PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES BIANCHI Raphael Vassallo Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt