The PN’s malaise lies in its lack of vision
Blog post by Romegas
Maltese Society is changing. Our demographics are changing. Sitting on the fence simply will not work. The PN should have never entertained a doubt on abortion. It had nothing to win and all to lose but this abortion issue betrays what is fundamentally wrong with the PN. It simply shows that the PN does not know what it wants. The PN wants to present itself to the electorate as not being the PL and thinks that by doing so, it can win an election. It thinks that it is virtuous and on the premise of virtue and the denunciation of a corrupt government, it can make it to Castile.
Well, that doesn’t wash anymore either – first and foremost, corruption is present in any government, and come on, we all know it was present when the PN was in power too. Yes, no doubt hold the government to account but first and foremost the ones doing so should not have long shadows in the first instance, and secondly, harping against corruption is by itself not going to win you anything.
People, election after election, are not worried about corruption; they simply factor it in! What the PN should be looking at – is what Nation do we aspire to be in 20, 50, 100 years’ time? What will it do to reverse the demographic decline – currently the worst in Europe with a fertility rate of a catastrophic 1.1? What future will it offer to the youth, who cannot afford a ramshackle apartment, let alone a decent home in which to raise a new generation? Will it offer them free condoms and a morning-after pill?
Whilst adamantly shouting it’s a Christian leaning party, then it proposes nothing that is inspired by Christian values. Is empty talk its vision of the future? Who wants it? Or will it, for example, follow Hungary’s government by actually investing 5% of its GDP in incentivizing family formation and child-rearing?
How will it curtail the rampant development without tanking the economy? And how will we transition to a more sustainable future (none of that climate change nonsense please) without major disruptions? What will it propose to surmount this cheap labour phenomenon? What vision will it offer as an alternative? What serious constitutional reforms is it going to offer the populace to give them more than a token say in everyday decision making where it comes to determining the future of their country, their neighbourhoods and that of their progeny? What is it going to do to fundamentally reverse what seems to be a terminal decline in the level of education? Simply throw more money at it and hope for the best as every government in living memory has done or will it address the fundamental matters like discipline, authority, and morality?
How will it address the national debt? How will it safeguard civil liberties under the growing threat of an unappointed, unelected, and unaccountable technocracy? What is the nature of democracy that the PN envisages? Is it one represented by an ever-growing ‘civil society’ that represents narrow and some instances well-funded interests or will it extend the franchise of democracy, particularly of a direct kind that gives citizens more of a say in the running of their country?
The PN needs to ask itself some very deep questions, and to answer them it needs real thinkers, not opportunists – least of all those on the EU gravy train. Alas, I do not entertain much hope.
As for the Labourites patting themselves on the back on the miserable situation which PN finds itself in thanks to its cognitive dissonance, they are being short-sighted. Not only does the country need a viable opposition, but if the PN had to collapse as it seems that is going to happen because of its own contradictions, so will eventually happen to the PL. For the PN-PL relationship, it is essentially a symbiotic one. If the PN had to be erased, then the ones in the PL can no longer point to the opposition for all their misgivings – and they will start to question their own party.
I, like an increasing number of my ilk – am a Nationalist – but not PN much less PL with its progressive agenda, which whilst in the short term might offer manna from heaven to everyone, holds within it the seeds of social and national destruction. I am not a partisan. I am a patriot. I am a political orphan and the ones like me will reach a record new height in the forthcoming election. I hope and pray, that both parties will rise above their petty squabbling, the shenanigans we witness daily like some macabre reality show. We need real politicians, serious ones and if the PN and PL insist on not offering any, if they insist on playing their petty games instead of firmly addressing the many formidable challenges coming our way which range from rising energy prices thanks to the climate lunacy to social disintegration, then let there be a plague on both their houses and let us look for alternatives elsewhere.