If it is up to the victors to write history then the losers are busy writing reports. That is just what the PN has just finished doing and it has published an executive summary of this analysis of the 2013 election result. Chaired by the papabile Anne Fenech the committee produced a litany of reasons divided into three parts: Why the Nationalist party lost, Why the Labour party won, and a part that includes suggestions for the future. Unlike the trend in Labour documents the executive summary does not have an obsession with numbering (check out the Law Commission’s latest report for a veritable OCD of numbering) but contains a list all the same. In the words of Eco “We like lists because we don’t want to die“.
In actual fact the first two lists are just a survey – a sort of vox pop the likes of which could have been obtained by any kind of survey company operating on the market. They are not in themselves the reasons why the nationalist party lost the election (or why Labour won) – they are the reasons why people did not vote for the PN and voted for the PL (sometimes, but not always, “instead” could fit at the end of that sentence). It might seem to be the same but it is different. A survey company would only have omitted those grating praises of the outgoing nationalist party and its achievements (the truth is hard to swallow indeed).
As a political party (and for heavens’ sake don’t give me the movement crap), the Nationalist party is duty bound to look deeper into its soul than simply listing the ills of the people in a quasi-maniacal manner. Idiots without a clue about politics had come up with such lists and polluted the facebook pages with obsessive statuses much before the commission could even start applying its enigmatic PESTLE approach (Ghallinqas kelli ragun fuq din). Worse still the report falls short (but only just) of blaming an ungrateful electorate for not rewarding a highly successful administration – admittedly the temptation is always there (just look at AD).
The report also risks glorifying Joseph Muscat’s “success” notwithstanding the jibes and qualifications that are present at every point in part two. The two lists – the anti-PN grievances and the analysis of the carrots that Labour distributed for its success – are dangerous in that they seem to push the PN into the ugly ground of emulating the Taghna Lkoll formula. That formula is not about politics but about marketing and building on dissatisfaction. It is the push towards the most mediocre of “political” methodologies represented by a manipulation of people’s needs in order to get into power (promising Turkeys to abolish Christmas) followed up by a display of ineptitude, abuse and lack of direction once such power is achieved.
The PN is in a much luckier position than AD in that it holds the lucky seat of alternation and the dice are seriously tricked in its favour when it comes to having to convince a Labour voter to switch back to itself. The committee is aware of this and has grounded its third part on that type of recommendation – of bringing voter into the fold of this “familja nazzjonalista”. J’accuse has always found this hermeneutic apartheid that grounds our political thinking both distasteful and counterproductive. The labour backlash in government is also a result of this way of thinking.
What the PN needs is to think different. To think outside the box. It risks wasting lots of precious time falsely “rebuilding” by thinking in the same terms as its Commission. What the PN really requires at this point is a look within itself – a hard thought evaluation about what the party means and what it wants to achieve for itself but more importantly for the nation. it needs to ask important questions that define its value and ethical make-up and build upon that block. As the Golden Circle goes it needs to be asking less about what it does or how it does it and focus much, much more on Why.
Once that message is clear Chris Said’s horses and men can begin to put Humpty together again.
