Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/979340
maltatoday WEDNESDAY 9 MAY 2018 Analysis 6 THE stakes are very high for Adrian Delia. For if he does not manage to narrow the gap in next year's MEP elections he may well face renewed calls to resign from leader. But this begs the question whether party critics are themselves contributing to this outcome by not respect- ing the leader chosen by party members. So Delia has to act fast to as- sert his authority, fully know- ing that any party perceived as divided, stands no chance at the polls. Delia's attack on elitism with- in his party comes in the wake of an earlier call for unity made on NET TV last week in a TV interview with Frank Psaila. 'No one is bigger than the party' and those who do not want to see the party progress have an obvious decision to take. "We have opened the doors for everyone, and spoken with everyone. Those in the party henceforth need to decide. The doors remain open for those who want to work hard for the party to progress, but those who do not, now have an obvious choice to make," Delia had said. After playing the unity card, Delia has now gone on the at- tack. "The Nationalist Party will not remain an 'elitist' party, and it will move to the streets and "understand the problems on Sunday during his party's General Council." Delia – himself a lawyer, businessman and football club president – promised that his party will not remain a party solely for "lawyers and doc- tors." "The PN must remain hum- ble," Delia said, apologising on behalf of the party to those who were insulted or hurt by the PN in recent years. This may well be seen as a token gesture albeit one which the party's previous leadership was very hesitant to make. Ironically the reluctance of a segment of the party to accept the change in leadership may well end up strengthening De- lia's grip. Defiance of the new leader only strengthens the perception that a segment of the party wants Delia to lose MEP elections, in such a way which ushers a new leader- ship battle. This will not en- dear them to the party's grass roots. Surveys already show Delia consolidating his hold, which suggests that the new PN lead- er is winning hearts and minds with the restricted cohort of PN voters. Yet he is making no inroads among the Labour vot- ers he needs to win. One rea- son is that as the party remains divided, Delia will be unable to present a strong challenge to Muscat. But lashing at the party's own elite only reinforces the per- ception among a category of 'anti Delia' PN voters that the new PN leader is Muscat Mark 2. Delia himself is wary of sounding too much like Mus- cat when he lashes against the "elite" and thus feels the need to clarify that he is not imitat- ing Muscat. "Those who claim that we are becoming Labour number 2 are very wrong," he said. "Jo- seph Muscat thinks about his own interests, but we think about the good and the needs of the country," he said. 'One of us' as leader? Delia presents himself as a normal guy who took it upon himself to lead the party de- spite the opposition he faced from the elite. Delia had already invoked the anti-establishment card when the party tried to thwart his leadership ambi- tions by calling on him to withdraw from the race fol- lowing the publication of documents (by slain journal- ist Daphne Caruana Gali- zia) linking him to a Jersey company that owned prop- erty in London sublet to a prostitution racket. He ended up winning against all odds in what was a clear sign that the party's grass roots wanted change. The members' vote also reflected the sociological make-up of the PN, which is far less elitist than many assume. Still by lashing against the party's establishment Delia himself risks alienating seg- ments of the party's elector- ate who identified with former party leaders like Lawrence Gonzi and Simon Busuttil. Delia may well take a lesson from the last time the party re- invented itself as a mass party after the election of Eddie Fenech Adami as party lead- er whose first declaration as leader was: "My heart is with the workers". It was Fenech Adami who opened the party to both working class voters and left leaning intellectuals. So far Delia's anti-elitism is more directed at the party's internal establishment and does not translate in to a call for arms against the country's establishment. On the contra- ry there have been conflicting signs of the party reaching out to the same establishment by not opposing certain planning decisions. Badges of identity The only discernable policy shift in Delia's new way is the greater populist emphasis on "foreign workers" and an at- tempt to cajole moral con- servatives by the defence of life from conception into a badge of identity. On IVF, Delia reiterated that the party is in favour of life. "We are not afraid to abide by our demo-Christian princi- ples." This suggests that Delia's promise of a free vote does not amount to recognition of plu- ralism on moral issues, which can see conservatives and lib- erals agreeing to disagree on some issues while agreeing on others. This suggests a more Trumpian approach towards politics; that of straying away from political correctness and echo what some people say in bars and others say in prayer group meetings. The question for Delia is how will this go down with Why is Delia using the "The PN is no longer the party of elitists," Adrian Delia said on Sunday, in a clear hint that under his predecessor the party was - indeed - "elitist". JAMES DEBONO asks if this is Delia's new way of asserting his authority within the Nationalist Party Lashing at the party's own elite only reinforces the perception among a category of 'anti Delia' PN voters that the new PN leader is Muscat Mark 2