Labour Regains More Lost Ground As Muscat-Era Shift Holds Firm, Says Vince Marmarà
The Labour Party has once again widened its lead over the Nationalist Party, now surpassing a 25,000-vote advantage, according to Malta’s leading pollster Vincent Marmarà.
Marmarà rose to prominence after accurately predicting the outcome of the last two general elections and is today considered one of the country’s most reliable interpreters of public sentiment. He is regularly commissioned to measure how people are feeling – especially in the run-up to major political events.
Speaking to Lovin Malta, Marmarà said he has observed a consistent trend in recent months: fewer Labour voters are saying they are undecided or plan to abstain from voting altogether. He stressed that the narrowing of the gap between the two major parties in recent years was not due to a mass shift in support from Labour to the Nationalist Party, but rather a surge in disgruntled Labour supporters who are now slowly returning to the fold.
His most recent survey, published in February, found that Labour was ahead by just under 16,000 votes and would scrape an absolute majority of 50.1% if a general election were held tomorrow. The PN registered 44.2%, ADPD 3%, and other parties 2.7%. Nearly one in four respondents—22%—said they were still unsure whether they would vote.
A more recent MaltaToday poll in April indicated a Labour lead of around 22,000 votes, further confirming the steady momentum Labour appears to be regaining.
In his February survey, Marmarà warned that many of the abstaining or undecided voters came from Labour’s traditional base. These voters are not necessarily shifting their allegiance to other parties, but are instead disenchanted with the current political climate. Their main concerns, the survey found, are immigration, overpopulation, construction, traffic, and the environment.
While the PN has so far managed to retain a greater share of its 2022 voters, with over 80% saying they would vote PN again, Labour’s broader base had shown more signs of attrition. At the time, just 72.2% of 2022 Labour voters said they would vote for the party again, while more than 25% were either undecided or planning not to vote.
That trend, however, now seems to be reversing.
Looking beyond the immediate polling figures, Marmarà offered a broader analysis of voting behaviour over the last 15 years. He noted that the most significant electoral shift occurred in 2009, when Joseph Muscat took over the Labour Party and triggered a major swing of votes from the Nationalist Party to Labour. That shift was so substantial, he said, that it laid the foundation for Labour’s continued electoral dominance ever since.
“Over the past 15 years, Labour has managed to hold onto a strong advantage, consistently maintaining a majority of the vote,” Marmarà said. “There have been some fluctuations, but the underlying structure of support has remained remarkably stable.”
Vote switching between the two major parties has remained minimal throughout this period, he explained. In fact, the large gap Labour registered in the 2019 European Parliament elections – 16% – was primarily due to low turnout among PN supporters, not a shift in preference. By contrast, in the most recent European Parliament election, the margin narrowed to just 3% as many Labour voters either stayed home or opted to support independent candidates.
“In the current scenario, when analysing surveys for these past years they showed, that what really matters isn’t people switching parties,” he said, “but whether traditional supporters are showing up at all.”
In other words, voter turnout – particularly among Labour supporters – continues to be the defining factor in Malta’s political landscape. And if recent trends hold, Labour’s recovery could yet prove decisive in any upcoming contest.
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