Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/321747
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 JUNE 2014 11 convey this message with convic- tion. In fact, any gain made in present- ing a constructive Opposition may have been dampened by a campaign in which the party was forced to gal- vanise core voters in last week's election. In so doing, the PN entrenched itself by resurrecting a tribal identity, which will put off any voter from the other side. Moreover, the negativity card is unfairly used to denigrate any legiti- mate scrutiny by the Opposition like its demand for the publication of the agreement between govern- ment and IPP concession- ary Henley & Part- ners. But the PN needs to f i n d a way of p a c k a g - ing its crit- icism in a way that will convince the electorate that its aim is not sim- ply to make life dif- ficult for the party in government. Tapping disgruntlement An analysis of the vote confirms that the PL is fac- ing pockets of disgruntlement among both switchers and tra- ditional Labour voters, but there is little indication of any movement towards the PN. For example, in the second district, Labour lost 771 votes compared to 2009. But there is no indication that the PN benefited from this. In fact, in the third district – where the PL lost 633 votes over 2009 – the PN also lost 630 votes. It is also probable that in these southern districts it was AD and Imperium Europa's Norman Low- ell who may have gained at the expense of both parties. For exam- ple, in the fifth district – which includes Marsaxlokk and B'Bugia – AD increased its vote tally by 241 votes since 2009, which is nearly equivalent to the small increase registered by the PN (248). This may indicate that the PN on- ly made minor inroads despite the emphasis it gave to the power sta- tion issue. This could signify that for southern voters, the PN lacked the credibility to exploit discon- tentment on this issue. Moreover, blowing the issue out of propor- tion by comparing a gas tanker to atomic bombs may have backfired. Going overboard to prove a point has been one of the major short- comings of the PN during the past year. Cringing at the inevitable? Moreover, building a parallel movement to compete with Mus- cat's not only requires some out- of-the-box thinking, but a degree of trust in the leader of the move- ment. For ultimately Labour's movement hinges on Muscat's popularity. Without Muscat there would simply be no glue to gel the components of this movement. While one may rightly cringe at the Americanisation of Maltese politics and Muscat's highly personalised way of conveying his message, by simply refusing to engage in a personality clash, Busuttil may be condemning his party to irrelevance. Moreover, the trust factor was already deployed to its advantage by the PN in the contest between Sant and Gonzi. As things stand, winning back power in the traditional way by banking on a resurgent Nationalist Party seems very unlikely. On the other hand, in the absence of an eco- nomic collapse, it is equally difficult to defeat Muscat on his own turf, ir- respective of whether Busuttil is re- placed or not. One long-term approach would be that of presenting a coalition, which goes beyond the PN's traditional ap- peal and constituencies. But this would mean the PN having to resolve its identity crisis as a party which has lost the appeal of being Malta's natural party of government. For the first time since the 1970s, when the party discovered centre- left Christian democracy as an anti- dote to its elitist roots, the party has to rediscover itself again. News The PN's double-dip recession Conceding defeat: the PN during a press conference held following the announcement of the MEP elections result