The PN’s leadership race: Pacts, promises, and political pitfalls

When a leadership race begins not with a vision but with whispers of betrayal, it is rarely a good sign. Malta’s Nationalist Party (PN), long mired in internal discord, finds itself once again in a spiral of factional intrigue.

Much has been made of a pact between Adrian Delia and Alex Borg. There’s a lot being said about it, and every line read must consider who the journalist has spoken to because those who rally behind a particular candidate will give their version spiced with their own point of view.

According to Delia’s camp, the deal was simple: Delia would run now, paving the way for Borg to take the reins in due time. But Borg’s side counters that Delia was to back Borg’s leadership bid.

Such an agreement is not necessarily ‘a devil’s pact’– most leaders would have got their position as the result of an agreement with factions. That’s politics, whether you like it or not.

Political pacts, by their nature, are rarely transparent. Leaders often rise on the backs of quiet deals struck in corridors and coffee shops. That, in itself, is not damning. What matters is not the existence of such arrangements, but how they are kept — or broken.

Delia’s side is saying, backed by Gozitans who supported Borg, that the agreement was that he would run and then lay the ground for Borg to take over. This would make more sense considering Borg’s inexperience in politics and the party itself.

You cannot run a party in which you have not spent time in its ranks. You can’t know its strengths, its cracks and the pitfalls awaiting you.

Despite cultivating a strong social media presence, Borg has limited experience, having spent only a few years in the political arena. His critics see a man trying to run before he can walk.

You cannot credibly lead a political movement if you have never immersed yourself in its culture, understood its pain points, or earned the respect of its rank and file. That is not elitism; it is institutional knowledge.

Borg’s enthusiasm may be genuine, but as any veteran of politics will tell you, enthusiasm alone does not make for sound leadership.

On the other hand, Delia’s political trajectory has been anything but conventional. In 2017, he became a PN leader elected from outside Parliament, running as a disruptive force with a populist edge and pledging to reconnect the party with its grassroots. His tenure, however, was fraught.

But what do each of them stand for? You have to answer that question without being blinded by political allegiances.

It is easy to dismiss this as merely another chapter in the PN’s seemingly never-ending psychodrama. But the stakes are real. Leadership races should be moments of renewal.

As the PN lurches forward, it must ask itself whether it is building a movement or merely managing a feud.

Malta deserves a functioning opposition. But that requires not just new faces, or old ones with rebranded ambitions, but leaders who understand that loyalty is not owed — it is earned.

MP Mario Demarco issued a list of recommendations. But they’re tactics. Nobody is addressing the core structural problems. And instead of watching a process of renewal, the public is stuck witnessing more of the same.