Watch: ‘Why I Joined PN’s Youth Wing And Why I Left After Seven Months’
Inspired by a desire to be the change he wants to see, university student Miirko Sant joined the executive of the Nationalist Party’s MŻPN youth wing last April.
Seven months later though, and disillusioned at the state of Maltese politics, he quit MŻPN.
“I joined MŻPN because, according to many people, you have to get into politics if you want to make a difference and I had always wanted to be involved in a political process,” Sant said in an interview with Lovin Malta.
“Many friends and people I knew were in MŻPN and I saw it as the ideal time to try and enter politics.”
However, he said he was left frustrated at how the mechanisms of the party’s bureaucracy served to stifle creative and innovative ideas that emerged from the MŻPN.
“Over time, I realised that I couldn’t continue contributing to partisan politics that, in my opinion, isn’t doing anything positive,” he said.
“I expected there to be an element of a political agenda but I didn’t expect there to be so many problems and barriers in terms of raising innovative ideas beyond MŻPN.”
“I decided to leave and re-join student activism because when I compared my experience there with my experience in MŻPN, I realised student activism was always more creative and innovative in their thought process.”
“You meet and speak to people with all sorts of political ideas, find a compromise, and try to make a change.”
Sant was one of four MŻPN members who resigned from the executive recently, along with Alex Jacobsen, Maria Farrugia, and Kevin Curmi. PN MEP candidate Miriana Calleja Testaferrata de Noto also stepped down as president recently and was succeeded by Thomas de Martino.
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