Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/860911
14 Dr Perici Calasione: your slogan in this election is 'Partit Rebbieh' – a 'victorious' party. However, even a cursory glance at the Nationalist Party will reveal anything but that today. Why, in your opinion, is a party which used to be synonymous with 'electoral success', now in its current predicament? We do definitely seem to have lost, somewhere along the way, some of the pages of our own book of strategy. I firmly believe we did write the book of strategy when it comes to winning elections. We wrote it, we illustrated, we printed it and we bound it. But we seem to have lost a few of its pages. The slogan itself, 'Partit Rebbieh', states clearly where we should go. I firmly believe that the PN – love it or hate it, with all its limitations and its idiosyncrasies – was always there on the right side, when there were the most important events and decisions in our political his- tory. So 'Partit Rebbieh' has also always meant 'Pajjiz Rebbieh' [Vic- torious country]. That is what we should aim for. And we should start speaking about that from now, perhaps in the most diffi- cult of times. Because I firmly be- lieve that it is in the most difficult of times that people need to step forward, roll up their sleeves and move ahead... In recent years, however, the Labour Party seems to have stolen a march on the PN: Joseph Muscat has appropriated the strategy of linking his party's success with the success of the country... and going on the results of the past two elections, public perception seems to have shifted accordingly. What went wrong for the PN? Well, things certainly went right for the Labour Party. There's no denying that. We are sometimes criticised for being a party that feels it has a 'divine right' to rule. That aspect is there, probably in- grained in our structures... and that has led us not to be able to acknowledge the good things that the Labour Party is doing in gov- ernment. Because undeniably, they are there. But I still believe there are differ- ences between the parties, which have to come out. My main con- cern is that we have failed to re- main in synch with the aspirations and the realities that our families, and all people, face in the outside world. At some point, we seem to have detached ourselves from be- ing one with those families... with the aspirations of youth, for in- stance. We are now just another voice passing on its message. We need to reconnect. It might sound simplistic, but really, it starts and ends there. There have been substantial changes in Maltese society, and not just generational [...]. the past 15, 20 years have seen a transfor- mation of the country. And often, it is almost imperceptible. Also, in the past, our victories were often tied to big overriding issues... start- ing with Independence. Because really, that is where modern Malta was being built. The PN went for independence rather than Integra- tion... even against its own internal misgivings. It was a big issue. From that decision, we developed as an independent country, and eventu- ally joined the EU: another big is- sue. In between, there was a clear threat to democracy and free- dom. It was a major rallying call. We don't have those 'big issues' anymore; at least, not clearly. But the challenges that we now have to face are those imperceptible changes in Maltese society: which, at the end of the day, lead people to decide one way or another. From the small decisions in life, to the big decisions... including how to vote. And including voting against what one traditionally voted for in the past. People are starting to see a better alternative in what, around 10 years earlier, would have been considered unthinkable. Vote la- bour, when you voted nationalist... or the other way round. There is a danger in that reasoning, though. Part of the 'divine right to rule' argument also implies that ONLY the PN can be expected to get things right. The PN gambled heavily on this perception in 2013: we were told that under Labour, it would be 'gas down gol-hajt' [headlong into a brick wall]. That prediction appears to have gone awry. So if the only distinguishing factor is now the performance of the two parties... and Labour, in the eyes of many, is performing well... doesn't that hamstring the PN's chances of recovery slightly? Quite possibly. Let's take one of the major success stories the La- bour government puts before all of us, in order to prove its worth: the economy. Undoubtedly, there are sectors of the economy that are doing, not just 'well', but very well. There's also a worrying change in the composition of our traditional middle class, in terms of medi- um- and long-term planning. We definitely have had sectors of that middle class moving up, and join- ing the high earners: people who have become property owners, or become wealthy through the con- struction industry, directly or indi- rectly. At the same time, there is a sizeable section of the middle-class that has always lived comfortably, without excesses one way or an- other... and which definitely never had to worry about maintaining a particular standard of living. Some of the changes in the econ- omy have not filtered down as they should have. For the first time, particularly as those families reach Interview By Raphael Vassallo maltatoday, SUNDAY, 13 AUGUST 2017 'Politics redone, bottom-up'