The first 100 days of Bernard Grech: adjusting the structures

Part nine

During the campaign for the election of a PN Leader, Dr Bernard Grech promised heaven on earth. He promised a totally different mindset, promised more peoples’ politics and promised that the Party will have as its fulcrum, the individual. These promises, which were enthusiastically confided to the members, proved to be just propaganda. In fact, this was proven in the first hundred days. What has emerged in these first hundred days is that Bernard Grech’s leadership of the party is in a conundrum.

The previous incumbent entrusted Dr Louis Galea to rewrite the statute of the Nationalist Party from scratch so as to reflect the current millennium. This was unanimously approved. Louis Galea unequivocally stated that it is useless having a new statute without taking into consideration the necessary steps to make this piece of paper active and alive. This is true. Yet, this reasoning means that there should be a person to actually oversee that the grass roots are aware of what is expected of them in this modern era in politics. Who is doing this job today to supervise that all members are acting in line with the party new statute? Is this statute going to be placed in a locked drawer not to see the light of day as happened with the report on the thrashing received in the 2013 election?

Are any of the generals cum directors, who were appointed in this first hundred days, going to explain to the sectional committees what the statute says in this regard? It’s no use telling one that there are a set of rules by which one has to abide, if there are committees that do not even send the minutes of each meeting to the Dar Centrali. But then, how can the administration expect committee members to abide by the rules of the game when the administration itself is not following such rules?

Is it imperative for such structures to follow the Party’s rule? Does the leader take into consideration that the statute needs to be explained to the party members? Didn’t the administration learn its lesson that Dr Galea, although specifically asked, just wrote the statute using high flowing legal terminology instead of adapting to the language of laymen? The party does not belong to the legal profession even if there are many men and women in key roles who are lawyers. The party belongs to the members whatever their walk in life.  

Then there is the internal issue of how the party is going to handle what are known as party clusters. What happened to these clusters in these first 100 days? Does Bernard Grech realize that he was chosen to lead one of these clusters? Please don’t try to make us believe now that these were not to your liking, and that you did not agree to this idea, or that you considered these groups as a waste of time. What is Claudio Grech telling you about these clusters when he spent weeks and months working on them with your predecessor? Or is this another brilliant idea of the klikka, which has taken over the Party, to convince you that whatever Dr. Delia did was utterly revolting and stupid?

When the first 100 days were over, the Party should have been coming out from the abyss which, according to the super brilliant elite, the Party had fallen into. Has this happened Dr Grech? When your first 100 days were over, you took the parliamentary group to a retreat run by one of your closest friends. But did you ask the group to list their mistakes, wrong doings, and their outrageous attitudes so as to be absolved from their past sins and have a change of mind? This is highly unlikely.

The most important structure that you, as the person at the top, needed to adjust, was to do away with the negative and unscrupulous behaviour of most of your parliamentary group; this is the most important structure in the Party which is sick to the core. If you are not going to tweak, mitigate, control your parliamentary colleagues’ outbursts and whimsical writings, you stand a good chance of losing the battle of adjusting this important structure and risk witnessing the promised dynamic changes running out of steam.