As the Nationalist Party stumbles yet again towards a leadership contest, one name keeps cropping up as the chosen champion of the so-called Defnisti faction: Mark Anthony Sammut. But behind the desperate PR spins and internal factional hype lies an uncomfortable truth — Mark Anthony Sammut is not the solution to the PN’s chronic crisis. He is very much part of the problem.
This is the same Mark Anthony Sammut who has already contested two national elections – 2017 and 2022 – both ending in humiliating defeats for the PN, each by a staggering margin of over 40,000 votes. These are not just numbers on paper; they are a testament to the political vacuum and failed strategies that Sammut himself embodied and perpetuated.
And yet, despite his track record of electoral failure, Sammut parades himself as a “fresh start”. But how can a man who is politically old before his time, a relic of factional scheming and backroom betrayal, pretend to unite a broken party?
Let’s not forget how he made a name for himself: by betraying his own then-leader Adrian Delia, helping orchestrate the very internal coup that tore the PN into shreds. The same Sammut who stood on the frontline of the Defnists’ petty power games now wants to lecture his party on unity? One might laugh if the stakes weren’t so tragic for what’s left of the PN.
This is a man who exudes the charisma of a hawk, cold-eyed and calculating – but lacks the vision, leadership or credibility to inspire a weary electorate. He is the prototype Defnist: divisive, petty, and more obsessed with internal squabbles than with defeating Labour at the ballot box.
If the PN truly wants to dig deeper into irrelevance, then by all means, let them crown Mark Anthony Sammut as their leader. It will be the final proof that the so-called renewal is nothing but an empty slogan while the same stale faces recycle yesterday’s failures for tomorrow’s defeat.
May God grant him the leadership – the Labour Party certainly won’t complain.
