Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1454280
8 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 23 FEBRUARY 2022 JAMES DEBONO CHANGE is essential in the renewal of political parties and as Joseph Muscat himself used to say before 2013, change can come in the shape of a 'political earth- quake'. The key is how to manage these 'earth- quakes'. In politics timing is crucial and on the second day of the campaign, the PN ex- perienced an earthquake which turns back the media focus on the party's internal troubles and away from Labour's. As things stand the party has no choice but to put on a brave face, face the music and emphasise renewal. The problem is that just days before D-Day, voters will continue associating the PN with confusion in contrast to Labour's unity, which is projected as a polit- ical virtue d e - spite the perils of blind devotion to the leader, as exposed by Joseph Muscat's fall from grace. In short, this sorry spectacle is of the PN's own making, and it makes it even harder for mainstream voters to imagine an alter- native PN government, which guarantees stability. For if you can't keep your house in order, how can you be expected to gov- ern the country serenely? The boulder rolls back And while few actually think that the PN will be in government – and for many the next election is all about the size of the margin and the PN's ability to renew itself with new blood – the latest crisis exposes Bernard Grech Sisyphean predicament, that of making a few steps forward, only to get rolled back to the starting point by the same proverbial boulder. Polls have so far showed Grech's gains in opinion polls constantly reserved whenev- er trouble brewed in his party, as was the case when Delia turned up at the Inde- pendence celebration with his 'blue shirts'. And all this comes as a demoralising blow after the party showed signs of vital- ity and preparedness immediately after Robert Abela blew the whistle. Yet the latest crisis also raises big questions on Grech's ability to manage internal rifts, defuse and resolve them be- fore these explode in his face at the worse time possible. And while Grech has managed to keep the energetic Adrian Delia on board, the latest rift is still partly rooted in the trau- ma of a leadership change, which took place just two years before the general election. The simultaneous Facebook 'withdraw- als' of Mario Galea, a former parliamentary secretary under Ed- die Fenech Adami, Kristy Debono, who was elected by 4,012 Grech's Sisyphean predicament: One After showing signs of vitality and preparedness as soon as Abela blew the whistle, Grech has been rolled back by the boulder of party disunity. Can the PN recover after a brutal day?