Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1290275
11 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 SEPTEMBER 2020 OPINION than for anyone else. This is the second time in quick suc- cession that the 'tesserati' are being called upon to choose a new leader; and while the circumstances have indeed changed slightly since 2017… in some respects they are still exactly the same. Three years ago, they chose Adrian Delia on the strength of a promise to (in his own words) "deliver the party from an establishment which had hijacked it"; and which, in ad- dition, was "responsible for the humiliating defeats of 2013 and 2017" (not to mention MEP elections, local council elec- tions, and all the rest…) And today, the same people they themselves rejected in fa- vour of Adrian Delia in 2017, are once again calling upon them to reconsider that deci- sion: or (as Delia's supporters would no doubt see it) to be given the opportunity to 'hi- jack' the PN once more, and once again be responsible for another string of electoral de- feats in future… Admittedly, it's not clear what percentage of those 20,000 would actually see it that way; but that, ultimately, is what will inform their final decision, one way or the other, on October 3. And it is a very far cry from the sort of electoral calcula- tion that ordinary voters make, when deciding whether they themselves prefer Bernard Grech to Adrian Delia, or vice versa… or, for that matter, when voting in an election, or responding to a survey ques- tionnaire. Besides: this particular lead- ership election is arguably unique in recent PN history, in the sense that the party knows from beforehand that it stands to lose at least a little support, no matter which of those two candidates they elect. Here, the actual calcula- tion may seem slightly more straightforward: those same polls indicate quite clearly that more Nationalists would be disillusioned by an Adrian De- lia win, than by Bernard Grech. So even if the precise extent of the fall-out may be hard to pre- dict, in exact percentages… the tesserati will surely be aware that Bernard Grech represents the less immediately 'costly' (in electoral terms) of the two op- tions. But that only brings me to another difference concerning this particular leadership elec- tion: actually, two. The first is that it follows on the heels of an all-out 'civil war' between the pro- and anti-De- lia factions, that has already completely eviscerated the Na- tionalist Party… and which has now spiralled far beyond any realistic hope of future 'recon- ciliation'. Secondly – and for much the same reason – the tesserati al- so know from beforehand that, regardless of their own choice today, the Nationalist Party is virtually guaranteed to go on to lose the next general elec- tion, any time it is called in the next two years (Note: Bernard Grech seemed to admit this himself, only yesterday). This also implies that the re- al choice facing those 20,000 tesserati on October 3 is not so much between Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech, as two rival pretenders to the throne… but rather, a question of which of these two utterly irreconcilable factions the Nationalist Party would prefer to get rid of, once and for all, now that it have fi- nally been given the chance. Once again, it is not exactly an easy outcome to accurately predict – there are, after all, major 'cost-benefit' considera- tions either way – but you can already see that the choice, in itself, no longer rests on the 'preferability' of one particular candidate over another. It is now a question of end- game: which of the two warring armies will win the final battle, and claim all the spoils… which also means that, at a certain level, those 20,000 tesserati (or at least, the ones who have strong allegiance to either De- lia or Grech) will also be voting on their own continued sur- vival as 'Nationalists'… not to mention, even more poignant- ly, as the true 'owners' of the Nationalist Party. I need hardly add that that's a totally different type of cal- culation altogether – almost from another galaxy, in fact – and something tells me that the odds, with hindsight of the final result, will turn out to be nowhere near as 'overwhelm- ing' as so many people out there clearly seem to think. But of course – like C3PO be- fore me – I have been known to make mistakes, you know… Han Solo shuts up C3PO in The Empire Strikes Back