Populist talk currently dominates the discourse on the future of the Nationalist Party and its ongoing process to find a new Party leader. Alex Borg is seen as the likeliest alternative for the leadership of the Nationalist Party.
Everyone expected Franco Debono to nominate himself as as potential leader of the Nationalist Party. Although very few are taking this prospect seriously, the probability that he becomes active once again in the Nationalist Party is more likely as the Nationalist Party is now immersed in populist discourse. Franco Deobono is chipping in to this discourse, pushing the idea along with Ricky Caruana, that we need to be chummy with Joseph Muscat and serial corrupt politicians in order to be successful in politics.
Franco Debono is literally a criminal-defence lawyer who advocates for the rights of criminal suspects and the achievement he is mostly proud of in his life, which he mentions constantly and on a regular basis, is that he successfully lobbied for criminal suspects to speak have the right to speak to their lawyer while under arrest.
Everything goes politics is in full swing, and Franco Debono seems to be pleased of the renewed attention that he is getting. Even the Labour Party is very pleased.
Although many delusional individuals, like Ricky Caruana included, may believe that the Nationalist Party is undergoing a democratic renewal, it is in fact degenerating into a political force that may end up cosier with Joseph Muscat than the Labour Party itself. This is a slow-motion train wreck unfolding in real time. Anyone who actually thinks that the PN turning populist is a good thing for the party is only doing Labour a favour.
The battle for Malta’s politics is now evolving between a cross-party populist alliance of Labour and the Nationalist Party on one side, and the other side that includes a civil society with European and democratic aspirations. The battle between what is good and bad can’t be more clear cut: one hand you have indecency, crime, corruption, Russian propaganda, and the everything goes mentality, and on the other side you have rule-of-law, European values and a pro-EU stance. The former thrives on disinformation, propaganda and outright ignorance while the other side stands for truth and reason.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply