Who needs enemies when you are in the Nationalist Party and you have “friends” and “colleagues” all
During my career as a sports journalist I once interviewed a national football coach and asked him how and why he always selected a particular player who was renowned for his foul and violent tackles and was very often yellow or red carded.
The coach smiled ruefully and said “true – he is so keen on tackling he even often ends up tackling himself!”
We had a good laugh about that.
Now let us change to the political scene and consider what is the role of a Party in Opposition to Government, what does an Opposition Party do in real terms and what our PN Opposition Party is actually doing.
Let us consider the role of an Opposition Party in its purist, often fantasy role. Having gathered a substantial number of votes but not enough to win Government, the Opposition is there to keep a check on Government to ensure it is on the straight and narrow path, to ensure all its actions are legal and Constitutional, to guide the Government when it errs and in short to be positive and beneficial to the electorate that voted for them and for the benefit of the country as a whole.
That is the purist role. It is all bullshit of course.
Opposition Parties are normally obstructive, uncompromising, try to find fault with everything, try to locate holes in everything, try to be popular with the electorate for the next election round and do their level best to try and bring down a Government and replace it.
Now let us take the current role of Malta’s Opposition Nationalist Party.
This is a very special party with a lengthy record of dubious standings and actions. When in the late 50s and early 60s the Church tried to ostracise the Malta Labour Party, instead of deploring such undemocratic actions, it jumped on the band wagon and corroborated with the Church to gain power.
When they eventually lost power in 1971, they unceremoniously kicked out their own Leader and then embarked on a bad-mouthing campaign to hurt the Labour Government internationally, trying to scare off investment and picturing Malta as a dictatorial state.
When they eventually lost power again in 1996 they worked hard to create rifts in the Labour Party Government and succeeded in engineering a division and achieved its resignation in 1998.
Once more losing power in 2013, the Nationalist Party has exercised every dirty trick in the book to damage the Government, to damage the economy and to create international condemnation and disdain, regardless of the treachery of such actions and irrespective of the economic harm caused to the country.
HOWEVER, as Malta’s Nationalist Party is a very special Party, it has now developed a role of what can only be described as an international phenomenon, a one-off in international politics around the globe. In addition to trying to harm the Government and the people as a whole, the PN Opposition is actually opposing and self-destructing itself!
The behind-the-scenes intrigues taking place within the PN makes the expression “a Den of Thieves” child’s play. Daily there are vehement displays of written and verbal violence as all the divided factions are attacking each other, personal slanging matches, disrespect and disdain, connivance and treachery and in short, enmity that even actual enemies cannot express.
The situation of the PN is simply disgraceful. The Leadership is weak and powerless, surrounded by intrigue and a clique more interested in boosting their own profile than in that of supporting their Leader and very, very obviously giving their Leader hollow feedback and mistaken assertions that then leave him out on a limb because he is foolhardy enough to pursue them.
In short, like our football player, the PN is so intent on violent tackling, it is now tackling itself!
ALBERT JEROME FENECH
