Broken Bad the first

The most expensive salvage operation in history takes place today. It will cost nigh 300 million dollars to lift the Costa Concordia out of the waters close to Giglio Island in Italy. Captain Schettino’s handiwork has led to a magnificent effort in logistics and this in turn has hogged the headlines this week – ahead of Japan’s latest natural crisis.

Closer to home the Nationalist party begins its preparations for the annual Independence Day celebrations. The young PN leader was the author of what I thought was a rather weak catchphrase in the run up to the last election: “Gas down għal-ġol ħajt” would be repeated with ecstatic fervour by the die-hards at every other rally. Fast forward half a year and Simon Busuttil finds himself at the helm of a shipwrecked party that risks total collapse into oblivion if no salvage operation takes place some time soon. Sadly the focus seems to be (or, given the way things work in the PLPN world, has to be) on the money.

I hate to use words like “the problem is” because this blog is about punditry that does not go to the extent of scientific analysis. In other words I have no polls and statistics to back what in the end are “hunches”. Yet, given the sufficient dose of necessary caveats, I would not think it to be amiss to state that “the problem with the PN is” that it is still thinking in the same old, same old mould. This “Broken Bad” series is an attempt to look into what is wrong and what can be righted. Like the legend of the phoenix…

Get Lucky?

So to begin with, what is left of the PN admin seems to have this massive obsession with financial debts. You cannot reasonably claim that this worry is not understandable yet there is much to be said about the fact that the financial burdens of the PN are an inheritance that is directly related to the current modus operandi and mindset of the party. In other words the current debts can only get worse if the party keeps on thinking in terms of playing the game as they have for the last thirty years. Unsustainable media and the absence of a real thinking machine (that was forfeited ages ago to be replaced by a combination of “crowd sourced blah” and “knee-jerk-I-have-an-ideas”) meant that the PN was fully equipped only for the race to mediocrity.

The whole party structure is geared to reward yes men and “loyalists” of a very troubling kind. They’re the kind that think in term of village kazini and would follow any dictat without batting an eyelid. Don’t be fooled by the upstarts who brought the last government tumbling down – they were the price to pay for an all-embracing pick and mix of candidates that our two party alternating system has created. They are the wrong symptom to look at.

What the PN should be focussing on at this stage is one crucial question. “Where are our leaders?” The answer to that should explain why there is a current dearth of leadership now and even more crucially why there does not seem to be a concrete possibility for future leaders to emerge. The PN could wrongly try to emulate the PL and come up with populist rhetoric and cheques that will bounce back in the very near future. The temptation is there and the current brand of PN politician is very much made in that mold.

It is useless to think strategically if you have no basic plan. It is even more useless if your lack of a basic plan exposes the lack of a soul. The PN should be asking itself why it is in the business of politics. Yes, after all these years this is the kind of question that should be at the very basis of it all. The next step would be to build around that. To start thinking again instead of reacting ridiculously. Get out of the box. Think differently and build a party around those thoughts.

It is hard, very hard for a whole system to be completely upgraded… from scratch. The last six months have exposed a seriously weakened PN – lacking moral fibre it has coughed up hopeless positions that are sons of panic thinking. Just think on how the PN congratulated the Labour government for its Libya energy agreement only to notice much later how shallow the MOU really is. This weekend the PN toyed with the idea of making a fuss about Busuttil being booed – it’s back to the “x’gharukaza these Laburisti” way of thinking that will get it nowhere.

So the first rule the PN must look at is the most important one: Know thyself. Why is the nationalist party in politics in the 21st century? It takes a second to wreck it… it takes time to build.