Opinion: Less Than A Year After The MEP Elections, The PN’s Momentum Has Fizzled Into Nothing
Last year, after the MEP elections handed the Nationalist Party an unexpectedly good result, the party wanted us to believe a revival was underway. I wasn’t so sure. At the time, I argued that the jury was still out — was this a genuine shift in the political landscape, or just a presidential show of force by Roberta Metsola?
Almost a year on, I think we have our answer.
Whatever momentum the PN believed it had gathered has quietly fizzled out, as many suspected it would. The result wasn’t proof of a turning tide — it was a flattering reflection of Metsola’s personal popularity, borrowed sparkle that never belonged to the party in the first place.
It’s not all Bernard Grech’s fault, of course. The internal divisions within the PN are well documented, a constant tug-of-war between factions that seem more interested in old grudges than new ideas. But Grech hasn’t helped himself. He’s allergic to decisive leadership and seems to think fence-sitting is a political virtue. The recent saga involving Karol Aquilina and Speaker Anglu Farrugia was just the latest reminder of the PN’s chronic inability to manage its own affairs, let alone the country’s.
Instead of seizing the moment to articulate a vision, the PN appears content to react to the day’s headlines and outsource the heavy lifting to NGOs and activists. Its instinct is to wait, see what the public thinks, and then issue a press release with the emotional weight of a terms and conditions page – unless of course it’s something about corruption.
To be clear: corruption is one of our biggest problems and something we need to reckon with as a nation, but it also isn’t the sort of thing you eliminate overnight. More importantly, it is something that must be tackled in parallel with actually running the country. In fact, I would argue that it is impossible to tackle corruption if you aren’t delivering on your primary goal as a government – improving people’s quality of life and helping them realise their aspirations.
For all its corruption, Labour has succeeded in doing this and from the perspective of many citizens, the PN’s only role in that has been to oppose and at time threaten to reverse the clock should it be returned to power.
That was Adrian Delia’s point when he reacted to the latest MaltaToday survey, which put Labour roughly 25,000 votes ahead of the PN, by insisting that the PN needed to put forward proposals that weren’t generic. “Merely criticising will get us nowhere,” he warned. “People take it for granted that the government is corrupt, but how is the PN going to change their lives?”
For years, the PN marketed itself as the only party capable of running the economy. Labour took that away — not because it reimagined the system, but because it proved it could play the same game and still win. Once your opponent shows they can also balance a budget and build a flyover, what’s left to distinguish you?
Vision, charisma, delivery. That’s what. If the policies sound the same, then the person selling them becomes the differentiator. That’s why it’s not just about having a vision — it’s about expressing it in a way that makes people believe you mean it. And right now, nobody is buying what Grech is selling, mostly because he doesn’t seem to believe it himself.
Alex Borg – apparently Labour’s Trojan Horse within the PN – was recently a guest on Karl Bonaci’s podcast where he was asked about the country’s cash-for-citizenship scheme. I don’t agree with a lot of what Borg stands for — there’s a clear right-wing tinge to his politics that makes me uncomfortable and merits scrutiny — but you can’t accuse him of lacking conviction. On the passports scheme — a programme the PN once vowed to scrap on moral grounds — Borg spoke plainly.
He acknowledged the revenue it brought in, the benefits it delivered, and didn’t treat the subject like a dirty secret. Yes, it had problems. Yes, there were serious governance failures. But rather than parroting the party’s usual line — some limp version of “we’ll keep it but police it better” — Borg actually proposed ways to broaden and improve it. His tone was optimistic, constructive, and — crucially — honest. It contrasted sharply with the PN’s usual vibe, which still sounds like they’re only accepting reality because they’ve been battered into submission by the electorate.
This isn’t about promoting Borg as the next great hope — let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But it does raise a larger question: why is the party so afraid of sounding like it means what it says?
The PN is drifting. It avoids the difficult conversations that might earn it some respect. It sidesteps risk and steers away from vision. And in doing so, it ensures it remains forgettable. Better to be loved or hated than ignored — and right now, the PN is firmly in the camp of the ignored.
And hanging over all this is the ever-present shadow of Roberta Metsola — not a ghost of the past, but a distant figure looming just enough to keep the speculation alive. One can’t help but feel that she enjoys the idea — the whispered anticipation of her triumphant return, the knowing looks across Dar Ċentrali. And really, who wouldn’t? But after ten years of “will she or won’t she?”, the real question is: does she even want it? There’s only so long someone can sit on the sidelines being mythologised as a saviour before you have to wonder whether they’re more comfortable being the symbol of hope than the one actually doing the saving.
In the meantime, the PN remains suspended in political purgatory — too paralysed to take bold decisions, too distracted by what might happen to focus on what it can make happen. It waits for Bernard Grech to become someone he isn’t. It waits for Roberta Metsola to make up her mind. It waits for Labour to slip.
But waiting is not a strategy. And eventually, even the most patient electorate stops watching.
One could argue it already has.
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