New Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia has solved one of his most outstanding problems – that of securing himself a parliamentary seat. But there are still many more in store if he is to rebuild and reunite the party and eventually return it to success at the electoral polls.
These latter two challenges are tall orders indeed, one taller than the other, but his first major hurdle, we report exclusively in today's issue, has been overcome following weeks of speculation of how, exactly, Delia would manage to assume the role of Leader of the Opposition.
That is because so many members of the parliamentary group of the party which he now leads had appeared rather reticent to surrender their seat in the House to the party's newly elected leader in order for him to be co-opted to Parliament.
That hurdle has now been navigated and surpassed and newly elected MP Jean-Pierre Debono has, as had been speculated, stepped up and did what was necessary, he says, for the greater good of the party.
It would have, after all, been a wholly unsustainable situation to have had one person, former party leader Simon Busuttil, serving as Opposition leader and his successor, Delia, serving as party leader.
Delia will now, within the coming weeks, be installed as Opposition leader in Parliament, where he will begin cutting his teeth without the benefit of having first served on the backbenches.
Delia may have to first earn his stripes in order to earn the respect of his political peers but in order to do so he first had to secure his rightful spot as Leader of the Opposition.
That is, however, not likely to happen before the first major event of the next parliamentary season, the Budget Speech on 9 October and the Opposition's reply. Those proceedings could very well be expected to be spearheaded by Busuttil.
That the interim period will not be too long is a good thing because, despite the fact that Delia and Busuttil have appeared to have put any differences they had aside, such a situation is unsustainable.
Delia's appearance as part of Busuttil's legal team in the case the former had opened against a number of people exposed in the Panama Papers – amongst which were the Prime Minister, his chief of staff and his tourism minister – the Monday after he was elected party leader was an unexpected yet positive sign of reconciliation and unity.
The country needs to have a strong and unified Opposition that befits our democracy and the news that Delia has all but secured his position as Opposition leader not only puts an end to the speculation and uncertainty within the party surrounding the thorny issue, it also paves the way for him to start work on his wider projects for the party.
In addition, foremost amongst which will be unifying the party's parliamentary group, which has been fractured by the divisive and at times bitter campaign for its leadership. He will need to reconcile with his MPs who refrained from advances made to surrender their parliamentary seat in his favour. He will also need to build bridges with the MPs who had opposed his leadership bid, some rather vociferously.
And once that is done, he will need to set about building bridges with the electorate that has been so disaffected with the party that they dealt it the country's two biggest landslide electoral defeats in living memory.
This will be no mean feat, and, if successful, it will be more than a feather in his cap, it will be his crowning achievement. There is, however, a long and winding road to the next general election and if a week is a long time in politics, then four-and-a-half years is an eternity.
from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/2wesdbq
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