The 100 days of Bernard Grech: Establishing the support pillars

Fourth Article

Once the plan of action is formulated and clear, the leader has to gain support and put together his team. As it happens, this is one of the most highly sensitive and decisive factors of the first 100 days. In the Nationalist Party’s case, this still seems to be a work in progress. However, it is quite obvious that those chosen to form part of Dr Grech’s team have been forced on Dr Grech. His campaigners were rewarded and some were even recommended through the system of friends of friends. Was this a good idea? Time will tell, but it is already indicating wrong decisions.

Ensuring the support of all your sympathisers is a vital factor, but on its own, this cannot guarantee any victory for a political leader. The problem with Dr Grech is that he doesn’t seem to be making any ground. Mapping out the internal coalitions seems to be extremely advisable. It is through coalitions that internal support is achieved and a leader can then reach all the Nationalist voters. Finally, Dr. Grech needs to establish a good feel factor to attract external voters; either the floaters or/and Labour’s disgruntled supporters.

A very important pillar in this equation are the supporters of the former Nationalist Leader, Adrian Delia. These have been behind Delia from day one, supporting him throughout his tortuous political path. Has Dr Grech considered that there are hundreds of these supporters who are openly declaring that they will not be voting? Is he conscious that there are a number of Nationalist supporters who are stating that they will be voting only for those candidates, sympathisers of Dr Delia? What has he been doing about this? The general inkling about this is that, whoever tells Dr Grech, that he will never be considered as his or her leader, his abrupt reply is ‘ukoll’ (as well). If he continues with this attitude, he can count himself a loser. These are very important votes for the Party and if he is not capable of attracting them back, he is facing an enormous uphill battle.

Dr Grech has been recruiting people who have always given him their support. He is filling the gaps by being selective on individuals ignoring those who have supported the previous political boss. A case in point is that, a good number of those being recruited, are coming from the office of a particular MEP who is being touted as the next Secretary General.

Does this look good on Dr Grech, when it is quite obvious that these people are being dumped on him and it seems he cannot do anything about it?

Does Dr Grech consider these people as the right choice for his secretariat or to be among his Directors?

Are these jobs of convenience and gratitude?

Doesn’t he feel that if he had to open up the race for these posts, this would have meant recruiting better staff for those positions?

This human diagnosis requires a good understanding of the politics of politics. This corroborates what is being stated in this series of article that the people around the leader should not be there only for loyalty but most importantly for ability. To be continued.