Surely, the Nationalist Party won’t solve its problems simply by changing its Secretary-General or administrative personnel. Nonetheless, pitching Michael Piccinino as an election candidate is a smart move considering that half of the PN’s Parliamentary group is on permanent honeymoon.
Michael Piccinino has proved himself to be different from most of the sitting-PN politicians who have decided to take a complacent turn to events. Individuals like him who take great risks at their own expense are to be respected, and that’s what he did when he chose to become Secretary-General of the Nationalist Party under Bernard Grech’s leadership in 2021. He had replaced Francis Zammit Dimech who was a symbol of an old guard and a party falling apart. Those who had risen from the shadows like Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech to save the Nationalist Party only kept dragging it down with them even further.
At least, Michael Piccinino successfully kept a respectable and hopeful face to the Nationalist Party: a young PN activist committed to patch a leaking ship while many had abandoned it already. He did what he could to address the party’s financial issues, scraping together whatever resources he could find to prevent some debts from compounding, and managed to keep everything afloat. He also kept different parts of the Nationalist Party working together both internally on the administrative side and on the political sphere, juggling a very difficult multi-pronged balancing act, also at his own political expense from different political factions. He was in a position in which everyone could find something to hate him for. Those mature and adult enough to see the complexity of his job kept and increased their respect for him.
Now, Michael Piccinino will bring his maturity into the front-line of politics, something PN desperately needs. It may very well win the next general election if it keeps pitching candidates like him.
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