Sent in by someone known to me. The article refers to a “Manuel Delia readership base”. By publishing this article I do not mean to suggest I believe such a thing exists. But the author does, so there.

Hope is the last to die. Or so says the optimistic.

With all the events and negative results achieved by PN this past week, many people will be questioning whether there is still any hope left out there. Does anyone out there still believe that things may be turned around just in time for the next general elections? Or are we doomed for this regime to govern until 2027, to say the least?

A week is a long time in politics. With that in mind, we can safely say that three years is an eternity. I believe that people out there will soon start realising what is happening to our country. Unfortunately, some will only realise when their pockets are affected.

Take this morning’s news, for example. We get to know that BOV is risking losing its last US Dollar transactions provider. The wisest ones could have predicted this one coming. The wise ones would have definitely read between the lines of this morning’s article as to how and why BOV got there and where BOV (and with that, our economy) is imminently heading. Those who are less wise will realise what has happened once “where we are heading” hits them home.

And then they realise. Unfortunately (for all of us), that is the only way they will realise.

Before anyone from Super One accuses me that doom is what I hope for. No. It is not. It is high time that Super One realises that hitting that brick wall is inevitable and only because we have one of their former presenters leading our country.

Now. What needs to be done for hope to survive. First of all, action. Immediate action. PN definitely needs it. The first step is for Adrian Delia to realise (or someone getting him to realise) that he has failed. And do what all Malta expects him to do. Then we need someone who is actually capable to rebuild and reunite the party.

And please don’t mention names like Simon Busuttil or Beppe Fenech Adami. This may be a hard pill to swallow for some of the Manuel Delia blog readers. These politicians may be perceived as heroes by some (including myself) but it is also a fact that they may be perceived as losers by those outside the “Manuel Delia readership base”.

Secondly, the person who should be leading the party should be someone having no direct link to any of the factions within the party. Again this may yet be another hard pill to swallow for some of the Manuel Delia blog readers. Yet, out there, it is the people outside this readership base who will be the ones to vote PN into government in future, possibly in 2022. It is those people who will be perceiving whether the party is strong enough to reach its targets and whether it is united enough to govern without any hiccups.

And politics is all about perception.

I will fall short of mentioning names. I do have a very very short list in mind of people within PN who are not perceived as having a direct link with any of the factions within the party. When considering that honesty and integrity are an essential characteristic for the next leader, that very short list gets even shorter. And it is imperative – for the sake of our own party and country – that one from this shortened list leads it for the next 8 years. Only then will other people start hoping.

For this to happen we need heavyweights from each faction within the PN to sit down together to discuss how we can reach that point where people can start hoping. Is that impossible to achieve? No. Not if any of those heavyweights truly have the party and our country at heart. Now is the time for people to start realising that this is the only way forward. For people to start hoping.