As the Nationalist Party celebrates the appointment of its new Nationalist Party leader, the Nationalist Party needs to contend with a potential defeat in the general election and massive debt. The Nationalist Party faces historic decisions and challenges with serious consequences and implications for Malta’s future. Appointing a secretary-general from the Lawrence Gonzi era is not generating much new enthusiasm for the Nationalist Party. It’s as if the Nationalist Party is still stuck in time with its same old problems and challenges.
Jason Azzopardi, currently defeated by an authoritarian government that has ensured to prohibit him from submitting requests for Magisterial Inquiries, has taken the back seat as the most prominent adversary of the government. Now, the Labour government’s main rival seems to be the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola. I would say that Jason Azzopardi is in a highly valuable category of people.
Most of the Labour government’s attacks against the President of the European Parliament come in bad faith and for purely partisan reasons. These attacks have no relation or significance to whatever the Prime Minister himself signs or says in Brussels. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ian Borg, speaks and says things that are completely different from the Party’s propaganda regarding the President of the European Parliament.
Currently, the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola is presiding over some of the parliament’s most historic decisions to date. President Metsola has taken a role much larger than Malta itself and is completely detached from local partisan politics. Yet, the Labour Party choses to attack her because she is considered a highly valuable target. Targeting her is effective because despite her foreign role, she is still representative of the Nationalist Party. Despite the fact that Labour’s attacks against President Metsolas are just a propaganda trick, given that she is not actually involved in local politics, this trick actually works because many people do still relate the Nationalist Party to President Metsola. The Labour Party is exploiting the desperate feelings of many of those who see that Malta’s future can only be guided into the right course if Roberta Metsola stops being the President and joins the local political fray to save her country.
There is also another problem which is contributing to the effectiveness of the Labour Party’s attacks against President Metsola. By reminding the general public that President Metsola is part of the PN, the Labour Party is at the same time subtly attacking Bernard Grech. When people associate President Metsola with the Nationalist Party, they are being given the impression of a Nationalist Party that could be very much different from the Nationalist Party of Bernard Grech. This is actually the impression and the ideal of many people currently refusing to vote in the general election as they expect something completely different from what’s politically available, and it’s as if they are just waiting for President Metsola to come along and solve all our problems.
The reality is that as time goes by, President Metsola is getting even more influential and respected in international political circles, enabling her various future political options. Her role grows bigger as the events become more historic. There seems little indication that President Metsola would abandon worldly affairs to save her nation from the rule of law crisis. Apparently, she was even touted as a potential future leader of the European People’s Party, but she won’t be contesting this post this year, which will be contested by incumbent Manfred Weber.
Yet, at the same time, President Metsola hasn’t abandoned her Maltese constituency and voters: basically 16% of the Maltese population. She comes to Malta regularly and even holds political events where she meets her Maltese voters and supporters. Occasionally she attends PN’s events but was not present during PN’s massive demonstration last week.
There is a sense of mystery to President Metsola’s future and place in local politics which is becoming ever more a liability for the Nationalist Party. It’s the leader of the Nationalist Party Bernard Grech who faces serious challenges about this issue because he is constantly battling a standard set on him by a literal world leader, and this situation is exploited regularly by the Labour Party’s propaganda. Surely, with Roberta Metsola as a world leader, no Nationalist Party leader has it easy if the Labour Party is ahead in the polls.
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