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6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MARCH 2022 OPINION 2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 7 JUNE 2026 Alex Borg must stay on and focus on changing the PN Editorial THE general election result is not what many in the Nationalist Party were expecting. A defeat by a 22-000-vote margin remains a substantial defeat no matter how one looks at it. Massaging the result to make it seem like some sort of victory would be wrong and ill-advised. But so would stopping at the headline figure without finding the silver lining that can provide a ray of hope for the future. It is true that Alex Borg had repeatedly said in the months prior to the election that he was in it to win it, even if he knew the difficulty of the task at hand. But it is also true that he only had seven months chance to get the party in ship-shape form and ratchet up enthusiasm, the likes of which has long not been seen within the PN. The result was a big reduction in the Labour Party's vote-margin that suggests the PN will en- ter the next challenge with a probability of victory rather than an impossible task. The PN appears to have recovered its 2022 losses; it also appears to have benefitted from a shift towards it from the PL. But still, more PL voters decided to abstain rather than crossing the Rubicon. Within this context, we do not believe Alex Borg should step down. He should seek a renewed five- year mandate from members and councillors to be able to continue the transformation process he started last September. The mandate will also give Borg a stronger hand in a party prone to faction- alism. For the first time, the PN has the chance to use a full term in Opposition to reflect, change things and prepare itself to be a government in waiting. And while Borg should stay on, the party must not shy away from having a contest for the deputy leadership post. A second deputy leadership post must also be created in keeping with the prom- ise made by Borg during the leadership race. It should also have a contest for the post of secretary general and the party administrative council. Ideally, the party should have a balanced leader- ship team that combines youthfulness with expe- rience; new faces with old hands; men and wom- en. It then needs to look at its internal structures and determine whether they are effective enough to create policy, provoke internal debate, transmit ideas and reach out to people. It is encouraging that within a few hours of launching an appeal for volunteers, the party re- ceived more than 500 applications. It shows that there is a yearning for a strong and effective party in Opposition. But that show of support must be channelled into a structure that keeps these vol- unteers engaged and committed to the cause. The party needs to entice new people to join its team; people who can provide invaluable insights and policy direction; people who can be presented as effective, rational direct alternatives to govern- ment's Cabinet of ministers. People, who could also be co-opted to parliament in due course if the circumstances permit. But stopping at structures and people would be wrong. The PN needs a deep, honest and unshack- led conversation about its raison d'etre—what it exists for—and its core beliefs. It needs to evaluate how to address the con- cerns, aspirations and needs of a rapidly evolving society. It must be a conversation about ideological po- sitioning. Political parties are not just managerial organisations entrusted to run a country as if it is a business. Parties are there to propose their vi- sion for society, for the country and this must be grounded in political thought. These conversations must not be shackled by nostalgia, fear or habitude. These must be politi- cal conversations that provide the ideological un- derpinnings on which a programme for govern- ment can then be built. This must be an internal process, which, howev- er, should be open to outside ideas. It should be a process that is guided by party officials but ropes in people outside the structures who can provide a positive contribution. It must be a process that takes inspiration from other parties within the European People's Party. It could be a process captained by AŻAD, which should transform into a modern think-tank. To do this, the PN must dedicate sufficient time and space to introspection. The PN would be making a gross mistake if it tries to short-circuit its way out of the doldrums by immediately going on the offensive and abandoning any notion of in- ternal change and evaluation. Borg must kick off this process after having a new team around him. At the same time, in paral- lel, the PN must explore strategies to better com- municate its message and reach out to different audiences. It's a tall order indeed. But now, Borg has the luxury of time on his hands and he must not waste it. He owes as much to those who placed renewed trust in the PN. MaltaToday 10 years ago Fenech fends off Swedish pensions headache 5 June 2016 NATIONALIST MP Tonio Fenech has accused the Swedish pensions agency of having an agenda against the Malta-registered pension fund he is a director of, which is embroiled in an investiga- tion into the way €216 million in pension savings could have been 'fraudulently' transferred into the fund via rogue sellers. The investigation, which the Swedish pensions agency forwarded to police and the Swedish and Maltese financial regulators, concerns the irreg- ular sales tactics of the Konsumentkraft call cen- tre based in Alicante, Spain, which encouraged Swedish savers to transfer their money from one private fund to Falcon Funds. Konsumentkraft encouraged inexperienced cli- ents to transfer their pension savings from lnsid- erfonda to Optimus High Yield - possibly using fraudulent sales tactics. The big question niggling the Swedish pensions agency is whether Konsumentkraft was doing this bidding specifically for Optimus, and later for Falcon Funds in 2015, when the two funds merged together, and this at the behest of a hired gun named Emil Ingmanson. Ingmanson is registered at several Maltese ad- dresses, having set up companies in Malta, act- ed as a business introducer for the setting-up of Falcon Funds Sicav in 2013, and is now seeking a licence for a new venture, Falcon Asset Man- agement. He has since denied accusations that he had employed Konsumentkraft to carry out the calls to savers to transfer their money to Op- timus. The Swedish pensions agency, however, claims the savings of some 20,000 clients trans- ferred to Falcon Funds are over-valued, because they cannot establish the real value of some of its investments. Tonio Fenech contests these claims. [...] The PN would be making a gross mistake if it tries to short-circuit its way out of the doldrums by immediately going on the offensive and abandoning any notion of internal change and evaluation