Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1401709
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 AUGUST 2021 OPINION Raphael Vassallo So in the end, the 'glorious PN' destroys itself… over an online poll MY, oh my: talk about a week being 'a long time in politics'… Because unless I am much mis- taken, it was roughly this time last week – though it feels like a lot longer ago – that the first serious cracks started appearing on the façade of Labour's 'sleek and sophisticated' electoral ma- chine. Or so it seemed, at the time. For having already been wrong- footed by the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder inquiry report, not to mention the FATF grey- listing, which was (and still is) arguably much more consequen- tial for Abela's government, that 'Ġaħan' comment, by Edward Zammit Lewis, seemed to sud- denly provoke vague rumblings of discontent within the Labour Party's own voter-base, too. And not just because a senior PL Cabinet Minister had so un- wisely dismissed his own party's supporters as a bunch of 'village idiots'. Many Labour voters were also visibly uncomfortable at the reminder that – after decades of being taught to hate the Nation- alists, precisely for their 'cosy ties' with business interests (Al- fred Sant's 'Big Bosses', remem- ber?) – well, their own party was not so very different, after all. And nor, for that matter, were the 'business interests' that it was suddenly so keen on sucking up to. It must also be said that – probably for the first time since around 2008 – the Labour Party's propaganda team com- pletely mishandled the ensuing situation, too. That billboard exchange, for instance: child- ish and puerile though it unde- niably was… I still call it 'first blood' for the Nationalists, in the forthcoming electoral cam- paign. In fact, I never quite grasped the point Labour was even try- ing to make, with that 'Grazzi, Yorgen' reply. Who cares, if Jason Azzopardi was guilty of something similar in the not- too-distant past? It doesn't ad- dress the core complaint that was being so openly expressed by disillusioned Labourites, at the time. Actually, it sort of does the op- posite. It more or less rubs their noses in the fact that… for all the difference 'voting Labour' actually made, on this particular front: they may as well have just stuck with the old Nationalist administration, and got on with it… So make no mistake: around this time last week, things were not looking quite so blissful and serene, in Robert Abela's 'Par- adise of Smiles'. And granted: there was no outright earth- quake, of anywhere near enough magnitude to actually shift the electoral landscape itself… But as I recall, that is roughly how things had first started going downhill for the PN, too: back in 2008, under circumstances that are none-too dissimilar from today's (like Abela, Gonzi had taken over from a much more popular predecessor… and in different ways, he also had to face the same old 'continuity/re- newal' conundrum…) Then again, however: the im- pression didn't exactly last very long, did it? Fast forward a grand total of one week, and… um… no one's talking about Edward Zammit Lewis's 'Ġaħan' gaffe anymore. No one is criticizing, defending, or even mentioning those billboards at all. Heck, no one's even talking about the FATF greylisting, either (or Moody's 'negative outlook', for that matter… you know: the oth- er thing that 'dampened Abela's mood' this week…). Oh, no. A whole new front has suddenly opened up, in the interminable 'Nationalist Par- ty Civil War'… and, well, that's it. Everything else immediately goes flying out of the window: and an old familiar theme song starts playing in the background. "It's time to play the music; it's time to light the lights; it's time to get things started, on the Muppet Show tonight…" I mean: honestly, though. How do these things even happen, anyway? Did I blink, and miss something important that oc- curred some time over the last seven days? Because it looks to me as though this entire lat- est ruckus – which has already gotten so far out of hand, that it now threatens to literally smash the PN into two, unequal halves – began with nothing more 'consequential', or 'important', than… an online poll by Civil Society Network. Yes, folks, you read right. An online poll – that is to say, an entirely pointless exercise, even at the best of times – organized by a 'Non-Governmental Or- ganisation' which, quite frankly, doesn't even exist at all. (Un- less, of course, the definition of 'NGO' has been altered, while I wasn't looking, to: 'some ran- dom guy, sitting at his comput- er at home, with way, way too much free time on his hands.') But in any case: there you have it. The 'once-glorious' Nation- alist party is yet again – for the umpteenth time – ripping itself to shreds, over something as em- inently banal, and idiotic, as… well, what I just said. An online poll… which, in this case, asked a question that doesn't even make any sense to start with. Let's look at it again, shall we? The exact question was: "Should a new political party replace the faltering PN as Malta's main Op- position?" And… erm… do I even to need to continue? 'New political par- ty'? What 'new political party' are we talking about here, exact- ly? Because there are already a couple of new parties out there, you know. There's Volt, for in- stance – which shares some, but not all, of the old PN's 'core prin- ciples and values'; and there's also The Moviment Patrijotti Maltin (and by the time the next election rolls along, I imagine there will be at least two other anti-immigration, proto-fascist parties to choose from…) And besides: if Civil Society Network can pass itself of an 'NGO'… then someone like Za- ren Tal-Ajkla would probably be fancying his own chances, too. (Now that I think about it, it might not even be such a bad idea after all. I rather like the idea of Zaren as Opposition leader, myself. Don't you?) But in any case, the problem remains the same: would any of those 'new parties' do, as possi- ble replacements for the PN as 'Malta's main Opposition'? Or does it have to be a 'new party' representing some kind of ide- ology, or vision, that a majority of people in this country (or, at the very least, former National- ist voters) might actually identify with, and vote for…? Reason I ask is that: while there is no such thing, in Malta right now, as a political party that ac- tually fits the above description: there is such a thing as a Consti- tutional definition for 'Malta's main opposition party'. (And I can assure you: it isn't 'being the lucky winner of an online lot- tery, organized by some random dude on a sofa'.) To put it as succinctly as pos- sible, any 'new political party' seeking to 'replace the faltering PN as Malta's main Opposition' would have to: a) exist (Duh!); b) contest an election; c) get elected to Parliament;