Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1522769
9 maltatoday | THURSDAY • 19 JUNE 2024 ANALYSIS stone or red flag? neither of the two leaders. This means that from now on- wards, it will be a different ball game for Grech, who will have to convince the country that he will make a better prime min- ister than Abela. To get there the PN leader needs to get his act in order before the country goes into electoral mode again. Tribalist revival One inevitable result of the party's electoral gains is that party activists and core voters feel emboldened. For the first time since 2008 the party had something to celebrate, despite suffering another defeat. A 'tribalist' revival among core voters was vital for the party to flip several councils and to ensure a compact vote in MEP elections to secure the third seat. This revival is prob- ably the result of party unity and the internal peace between Grech and Adrian Delia. But the party also needs to win over a big chunk of those who voted for independent or third-party candidates, and others who opted not to vote to catch up with the PL. The midterms have shown that the PN has so far only ben- efitted from a small shift in its favour. A greater number of votes lost by Labour went to independents or 'parked' in the abstentionist camp. In this sense, any PN resur- gence depends on whether the opposition can unite under the PN's banner or whether the PN's dominance will be in- creasingly challenged by new political formations boosted by the success of independents like Arnold Cassola. In this sense, the PN has no monopoly over anti-Labour voters, and people who resent the PL but do not desire a PN government will have other options. It is the PN's task to convince voters that a PN vic- tory is desirable. Much depends on how the party will project itself on an ideological and strategic lev- el. The party may project it- self as a liberal democratic centrist platform, like the one led by Donald Tusk in Poland and Fine Gael in Ireland. This would entail greater freedom for PN voters on moral issues and a convergence around a social market economy and a greater attention to environ- mental issues. However, the party may also project itself as a conservative and populist party, addressing popular discontentment on im- migration at the risk of sound- ing disruptive. The PN's strate- gy will also determine how far Labour can present the next election as a choice between stability and disruption. But the PL could also in- fluence the PN's strategy by throwing a couple of curveballs, like euthanasia and a tinkering of abortion laws, which could derail the PN's strategy by cre- ating new fault lines. And as happens in a chess game, until check mate, any move by one of the players may also create new openings for its rivals. Bernard Grech is now the undisputed leader. This puts an end to a period of turmoil in a party riven by factional conflict. But this also means that the PN will be led by the same leader who lost to Abela in 2022.