Malta uses the Single Transferable Vote system in European elections, which results in fierce competition between candidates, writes Jean Claude Cachia. The 2024 European Parliament election in Malta will be no exception to this rule, with the campaign likely to be both intense and polarised.

This article is part of a series on the 2024 European Parliament elections. The EUROPP blog will also be co-hosting a panel discussion on the elections at LSE on 6 June.

Maltese voters will join the rest of Europe in electing their six representatives for the European Parliament on 8 June 2024. The election in Malta – the smallest member state of the European Union – will take place two years after the country’s 2022 national election, which reconfirmed the popularity of the Labour Party and its leader Robert Abela.

The 2022 election exposed the uphill struggle the Nationalist Party and its leader Bernard Grech face in bridging the gap between the two parties after the haemorrhaging of votes the latter has experienced over recent years. In the upcoming European Parliament election, the Labour Party is widely expected to win a majority of votes. However, the real test will be whether the Labour Party can retain its four seats or whether the Nationalist Party will manage to reduce the gap to its rival and potentially win a third seat.

Fierce competition

The Maltese political system traditionally encourages fierce competition, polarisation and partisanship. The Single Transferable Vote system used in European, national and local elections pits individual candidates against one another. Elections thus become contests not just between leaders and their parties but also between candidates. The upcoming European Parliament election will be no exception to this. This means that personalities matter.

From 2013 onwards, the Labour Party has designed its electoral campaigns to resemble a contest between its leader and the leader of the Nationalist Party. The reason for this is that Joseph Muscat and his successor Robert Abela have enjoyed far greater popularity than the three successive Nationalist Party leaders: Simon Busuttil, Adrian Delia and the current leader Bernard Grech. A recent survey revealed that 44% of people trust Abela, compared to just 22% for Grech.

However, this election will not be a simple contest between the leaders, who are not running for office. Instead, some key candidates will be taking centre stage. Roberta Metsola, the current President of the European Parliament, is the leading figure on the Nationalist Party’s ticket. Metsola, an ardent critic of the former Labour government headed by Muscat, and a consistent critic of the country’s Individual Investment Programme, has frequently championed the cause of justice for the late Daphne Caruana Galizia – a journalist assassinated in Malta in 2017.

Metsola’s international stature has attracted the ire of the Labour Party and the decisions she has fronted as President of the European Parliament have taken precedence in the initial days of the campaign. This is not the first campaign in which Metsola (and her fellow MEP David Casa) have been the main targets. In 2019, both Casa and Metsola, were denounced as “traitors” for working against the Maltese interest within the European Parliament when they debated the situation concerning the rule of law in Malta.

A similar approach has been visible this year, with the Labour Party warning that Metsola and the Nationalist Party are in favour of increasing defence spending and a potential EU army. Security is still a sensitive issue in Malta given the country’s neutral status and decision to stay out of the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) framework. This posturing, however, has been seen as contradicting the Prime Minister’s decision to agree within the European Council on a new set of measures to strengthen European defence in March this year.

A return for Joseph Muscat?

Another figure of note in the election is Joseph Muscat. Although Muscat resigned as Prime Minister in 2019 after new details emerged about the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, he is still extremely popular within the Labour camp. Candidates in the European Parliament election have been vying for his endorsement, despite the fact he is largely discredited internationally.

In February 2024, news circulated that Muscat was interested in contesting the European Parliament election as a candidate. This led to an intense media frenzy around him. While Muscat is linked to several corruption allegations, he remains popular due to the economic and political reforms he implemented during his time in office. Reports suggested that Muscat would receive as many as 100,000 votes – a large amount considering there were only around 355,000 registered voters in the 2022 national election.

It is questionable how Muscat would be received at the EU level given the various resolutions passed in the European Parliament against his administration. His involvement would have certainly overshadowed the leadership of Robert Abela, who still lacks the charisma of his predecessor. In any event, it was announced at the end of April that Muscat would not be competing in the election. It is unclear whether there was ever a genuine prospect of him taking part or whether he was merely testing his popularity.

Immigration

While the Labour Party has attempted to politicise security as a means of weakening the Nationalist Party, the 2024 Eurobarometer survey suggests that other issues are more important to the Maltese electorate. The top priorities for Maltese voters are migration and asylum (50%), public health (41%), the fight against poverty and social inclusion (38%) and action against climate change (33%). This highlights that voters are mostly focused on national issues (public health, poverty and climate change) with European issues playing a secondary role.

Migration has always been important during campaigns for European Parliament elections. However, this time around, it is third country nationals that are deemed to be of concern rather than irregular migrants, given that the arrival of irregular migrants has decreased over the last decade. Political parties have nevertheless made little attempt to distinguish between irregular migrants, refugees and third country nationals.

Moreover, both parties seem to be in favour of an economic model that relies on third country nationals. This has allowed the issue to be politicised by Norman Lowell, the far-right leader of the Imperium Europa Party. Although the far right in Malta have little influence, Lowell is still seen as a threat given that in the 2019 election, he received 8,238 first-count votes and expectations are that he will receive more in the 2024 election.

What to look for on election day

A key question for the 2024 European Parliament election in Malta will be whether the country’s political parties can encourage voters to turnout at the polls. The 2019 European Parliament election saw a small drop in turnout. It remains to be seen whether voter apathy will prevail this time around or whether the parties can dodge the trend and bring citizens out to vote.

Another important question is whether smaller parties, such as the ADPD party and Imperium Europa, can win votes from the mainstream parties, with the election set to pit many established and new candidates against each other. Ahead of the launch of electoral manifestos on 1 May, it seems the campaign will be both intense and polarised – and in this respect at least, the election will be business as usual for Maltese politics.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: European Council