Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1287818
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 13 SEPTEMBER 2020 Raphael Vassallo OPINION Has anyone ever had an easier ride than Bernard Grech? CAST your minds back to ear- ly June 2017. As you may recall, the Labour Party had just won an election by the widest margin in history. For the same reason, the entire Nationalist Party lead- ership team had just announced its resignation… paving the way for a new leadership contest, to be held in September. And for a while, everything seemed to be following the usual post-electoral script. The front-runner was, very predict- ably, veteran MP Chris Said; there was a respectable 'token' candidacy in the form of Alex Perici Calascione; and Frank Portelli occupied the tradition- al spot reserved for benign (but ultimately unelectable, and therefore non-threatening) 'out- siders'… you know, just to keep up an external veneer of 'com- petition'. But there was no real doubt as to who was on course to win. Up until that point, everything seemed geared (not to say 'rigged') to virtually guarantee the same old result we had all more or less grown accustomed to: a simple 'handing down of the baton' from one generation to the next…. as had happened between Lawrence Gonzi and Simon Busuttil; and, earlier, be- tween Gonzi and Eddie Fenech Adami. Then, the unthinkable hap- pened. A new, unexpected and totally unscripted candidate suddenly emerged out of no- where to contend for the post – no prizes for guessing who – and almost immediately, there were flickers of excitement in various pockets of the PN grassroots. Admittedly, it proved to be a woefully short-lived illusion… but back in those early days – i.e., before questions were duly raised about his personal financ- es; his alleged business associa- tions with criminals; his family affairs; and (in a nutshell) his entire suitability for the post of PN leader, from top to bottom – Adrian Delia's candidacy must have struck many Nationalists as a classic case of 'just what the doctor ordered'. Unlike those other token can- didates, he seemed to represent a truly (and radically) different approach, for a demotivated and utterly demoralized party that had clearly run out of steam. And being an outsider, he was unsullied by association with any former Nationalist admin- istration; and therefore, entirely blameless for the previous two consecutive electoral defeats. What candidate could be bet- ter positioned, then, to deliver the promised turnaround in the Nationalist Party's fortunes… if not the only one on the ballot sheet who could actually start afresh, on a totally blank slate? OK, let me hit the pause but- ton for now. Like I said, this was three years ago; and an awful lot has happened since June 2017. Indeed, given the subsequent speed with which the same Delia fell from public grace since win- ning that contest… even I find it hard to concretely remember a time when those 'flickers of ex- citement' could palpably be felt. And besides: just as some sec- tions of the PN support-base clearly warmed to the Delia's exterior affability, and the 'man- of-the-people' image he tried so hard to project at the time… there were others who reacted to him with instant suspicion (even before, it must be said, there was anything to be overtly suspicious about). All the same, however: by now you will probably work out where I'm going with all this. With only a few alterations to some minor details here and there – for instance, the number of candidates contesting; or why the election is even taking place at all – pretty much everything I just wrote about Adrian Delia in June 2017 (except maybe the 'instant suspicion' part) is just as applicable to Bernard Grech today. Like Delia three years ago, Grech was almost totally un- known to the general public when he surprised everyone (well: most people, anyway) by throwing his hat into the ring. And the effect of this seem- ingly unscripted candidacy was likewise to enthuse and galva- nise certain sections of the par- ty grassroots… leading one of Grech's many admirers to ob- serve that: "he lit a flame of hope for a better, brighter and fairer future…" So even before we get to the parts where both Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech saw a shift in their popular perceptions – both due to revelations of financial 'carelessness' which, albeit in different ways, and to different degrees, raise questions about their suitability as prospective Prime Ministers – we can al- ready see glaring differences in the way these two otherwise similar candidates were treated from the very outset. Let's go back to that timeline, shall we? (Oh, and bear in mind that I won't be getting as far as the revelations about Delia's off- shore bank account, or Grech's more recent 'history of unpaid taxes'. The basis of this com- parison is limited only to how we initially viewed these candi- dates… not how we view them today.) The first of many public objec- tions to Adrian Delia came on June 29, when Daphne Caruana Galizia blogged the question: "How does Adrian Delia plan to be leader of the Opposition if he doesn't have a seat in parlia- ment?" Daphne ended that blog-post with the line: "If I had the re- sources of a newsroom, my big story right now would be con- tacting each of the Nationalist MPs and asking them whether they are willing to give up their seat to Adrian Delia…" And… what do you know? It was (perhaps unsurprisingly) prophetic, though Daphne her- self didn't live long enough to see it eventually come true. In the end it took Adrian Delia al- most a month after the election – until October 16, as it happens – to "find the weakest National- ist backbencher MP and per- suade him to give up his seat". But for months beforehand – ever since June 29, in fact – the entire country had been caught up in the 'who's-going-to-give- up-his-seat-for Adrian-Delia?' guessing game. Bernard Grech? Slightly dif- ferent story. Like Delia before him, today's 'outsider' contest- ant doesn't have a seat in Par- liament either. And yet, nobody ever raised it as a possible objec- tion to his candidacy. As I recall, it was mentioned (very casually) in an early press interview… on- ly for Grech to wave the matter aside, as a bridge to be crossed at the opportune moment. When that moment came, Bernard Grech ended up with a choice of no fewer than three 'weak' sacrificial MPs, all ready