New PN leader Alex Borg walks to work, vows to carry party ‘back to kitchen tables’

**Alex Borg pledges unity and renewal in first interview as PN leader**

In a candid late-night chat at the party’s Pietà headquarters, newly-elected Nationalist Party leader Alex Borg told *Hot Malta* that his first mission is to “bring the PN back to the people’s kitchen tables” after a decade of electoral defeats and internal rifts.

“The party that built Malta’s welfare state cannot sound like a think-tank in Sliema,” Borg said, switching effortlessly between Maltese and English the way commuters hop on and off the Valletta ferry. “We must speak like the farmer in Rabat, the gamer in Msida, the grandmother who still remembers Eddie’s first mass meeting in 1981.”

Borg, 46, a lawyer-turned-MEP who grew up above his parents’ stationery shop in Żabbar, defeated rival contender Emma Portelli Bonnici by 53 % in Saturday’s extraordinary general council. His victory comes at a pivotal moment: the PN has lost four consecutive general elections, hemorrhaged younger voters to Labour and ADPD, and seen its core base shrink to the traditionalist pockets of Gozo, the northern harbour, and pockets of rural Malta.

Yet Borg’s opening move is not policy but symbolism. On Monday he cancelled the leader’s reserved parking spot and walked to Parliament in the rain, stopping to greet street-cleaners outside the new City Gate. “Mandate begins with muddy shoes,” he quipped, instantly spawning memes that compare him to Dom Mintoff’s famous 1958 barefoot protest—proof that Maltese political memory still runs deeper than TikTok trends.

### From factional war to *festa* truce

Borg inherits a party scarred by the 2017 leadership tussle between Adrian Delia and rebel MPs, and the bruising 2020 no-confidence motion that ousted Therese Comodini Cachia. Healing those wounds, insiders say, will require more than slogans.

Enter the *festa* circuit. In his first 30 days Borg will attend 18 village feasts, from the brass-band swagger of Zejtun to the candle-lit procession of Mellieħa, deliberately choosing parishes where PN clubs have been shuttered or downsized. “The *bandu* is still the loudest social network on the island,” he laughed, referring to the village announcer who reads notices from the *parvis*. “If we can’t reclaim that space, we don’t deserve to govern.”

The strategy is vintage Maltese: wrap modern messaging in lace-trimmed tradition. Political scientist Maria Grech Ganado argues the PN’s survival depends on re-rooting itself in communal ritual. “Maltese identity is performed in the village square—*kaxxa tal-klabb*, *pjazza*, *pastizzi* at 6 a.m. after the *marċ*. Borg understands that you don’t win hearts on Facebook; you win them when you carry the statue of St Joseph alongside your opponent.”

### Youth, environment, and the cost-of-living crucible

Borg’s policy triptych—cheaper housing, cleaner seas, and digital jobs—directly targets voters under 35, a cohort that broke 68 % for Labour in 2022. He plans to revive the PN’s 2017 proposal to transfer vacant properties to first-time buyers at peppercorn rents, coupled with a “green apprenticeship” scheme that pays students to restore *honey-coloured* façades in the south.

Critics dismiss the package as recycled pledges, but Borg counters that context has changed. “Inflation is eating *ħobż biż-żejt* for breakfast. When a pastizz costs 60c, climate policy isn’t elite—it’s survival.”

Environmental NGOs welcomed his promise to enshrine a citizen’s right to clean air in the Constitution, though they note the PN presided over the 2006 rationalisation of development zones. “We will judge him by the first planning application he refuses,” said Astrid Micallef from Friends of the Earth.

### Community impact: the Żejtun test

Back in Żejtun, Borg’s hometown, residents are cautiously optimistic. Mayoress Joeline Attard, a Labourite, told *Hot Malta* she invited the new PN leader to collaborate on traffic-calming measures around the parish church. “Politics ends where the *żuntier* begins,” she said, using the Maltese word for church parvis. “If Borg keeps that spirit, the whole island gains.”

At the corner kiosk, 72-year-old Ġorġ “il-Ħelu” salutes the unity message but wants concrete help for pensioners sweltering in uninsulated *ħaġra* houses. “Talk is cheap; roof tiles cost €2 each,” he shrugs, sipping *Kinnie* in the shade.

Borg insists he is ready for the grind. “Renewal isn’t a press conference; it’s showing up at 5 a.m. when the *għaqda tal-ħbieb* is decorating the street for the feast.” Whether that granular presence scales to national momentum will decide if the PN finally escapes opposition, or remains the perennial runner-up in Malta’s two-horse race.

For now, the *bandu* has a new name to pronounce. And in village after village, Maltese ears—ever attuned to the cadence of hope—are listening.