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Jerfghu r-responsabbilta huma, (they will have to shoulder the responsibility) said the well known State broadcasting TV host on rival station Net TV – referring to AD for having slurped thousands of votes from the PN.
Mr Lou Bondi could evidently not hold back his displeasure after having seen his Party hit an all time low to a Party he has never, ever loved.
But then he has every right to hold an emotional attachment to a political party. He should just stop looking down at others who do not share his political so called beliefs.
He blamed the Greens instead of Government for having deprived the PN of their God given right to have a majority and miss out on their three elected parliamentarians.
In the last weeks, I emphasized that this was Joe Saliba’s first real electoral campaign test and I suggested that he would not do well.
Saliba is under the illusion that he had taken the Nationalist party to victory in 1998 and in 2003.
Just in case he needs reminding, the PN won the election in 1998 because of the Dom Mintoff factor and enjoyed a landslide in 2003 because of the European ticket.
Mr Saliba is seen as a ‘Johnny come lately’ to the Nationalist party. But he hates being reminded of this.
Another reminder; this is the PN’s worst electoral result since 1953.
He headed a campaign for this election that was not only uncreative, but downright counter-productive.
His big bloc and abortion strategy was only matched by Tonio Borg’s sillier comment that the Greens were against nuclear.
We came to know that the Lija based politician loves nukes.
Based on what many Nationalists tell me, the party is ostracised from its core supporters, the affluent middle class and the professional classes.
Worse still, the party can be described in three separate blocs.
The first are the ministers who feel that the party needs a new administration and who would welcome a rapprochement with the Greens.
The second bloc are the Nationalist electorate, who have an affinity for the Greens and have clearly shown it.
And then there is the administration headed by Joe Saliba, Angelito Sciberras and Gordon Pisani who continue to believe that the Party is supreme and at war with everyone
Last year, when the Greens and the PN came closer together before the national elections, there was a proposal that a joint ballot sheet with the two parties could be fielded.
This proposal led Mr Saliba to say that Nationalists would never accept the Greens on the same ballot sheet because the Greens are seen by the Nationalist core support as a party for ‘gays’ and in favour of abortion.
I found this fundamentalist stand hypocritical, more so when one considers that the PN has a large number of gays within its structures and today has, as one of its representative in the European parliament someone very close to the gay community..
There are many who believe that Nationalist party will regain its standing, but to do so it needs to send some of its folk on a Sabbatical.
When the PN suffered an electoral defeat in 1996, Dr Austin Gatt was unceremoniously asked to pack his bags. He was not the only one.
There is another area that needs ‘restructuring’ and that is Net TV. Pierre Portelli, who still returns to keep the propaganda flag flying, should be politely told that he has lost his GRIP and that he is out of touch with the middle ground.
If there is going to be a NET TV it needs to be run by people with a love for the party and politics not by those more concerned with their businesses.
Politics is cruel. It never says ‘thank you’ to anyone. But then Mr Saliba knows the feeling. He has asked so many people to say adieu to ‘Stamperija’ after having made it their first home that perhaps he deserves a taste of his own medicine.
Beyond the troubles created by the individuals who lead the party, the Nationalists remain the only ones fit for government at the moment.
With someone like Alfred Sant who argues that pensions should not change and with no new ideas in the bag, the PN is committed to seek alliances.
In other countries despite all the hogwash we heard from Simon Busuttil about the PPE, the Christian Democrats also form alliances with the Greens.
Instead of building on the friction between the two sides, the PN and the Greens should come together and iron out their differences. Though ideologically there should be more of an alliance between the Socialists and the Greens, with Alfred Sant there I cannot see this happening.
If it does not happen and the PN does not mend its ways then one could very well be inviting more haemorrhage.
Going on believing that everyone owes it to the PN is something that only people such as Marisa Micallef Leyson and Daphne wish to promulgate.
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