Malta’s MEP Elections: Labour Party Keeps Hold Of 15% Gap As Race For Remaining Seats Heats Up
Ahead of next week’s European Parliament elections, surveys have continued to show the Labour Party keeping hold of its significant gap over the Nationalist Party, garnering 56.9% and 55% of the vote according to Torca and The Times of Malta (ToM) respectively.
A Malta Today survey, which shows a historic 57.8% win, does spell a more worrying reading for Adrian Delia. With a third of PN voters still not trusting the embattled PN Leader and barely a quarter of the nation doing so, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s attempts to make this election a choice between Delia and himself may prove a disaster for the PN.
When it comes to the candidates themselves, Miriam Dalli (27%), Alfred Sant (20%), Alex Agius Saliba (6%), and Josianne Cutajar (3%) are currently the most likely candidates to get elected from the Labour Party, according to the ToM survey, which was conducted by Misco.
However, MT’s survey does give some better indication of the critical battles that may emerge next weekend.
Dalli (14.2%) has maintained her firm grip on the polls for first count votes while Former Prime Minister Sant (4.4%) seems practically a shoo-in for the post. On the other hand, Cutajar (2.1%) and Agius Saliba (1%) could be facing stiff challenges from Cyrus Engerer (0.5%) and newcomers Felix Galea Busuttil (0.3%) and James Grech (0.2%).
For the PN, Roberta Metsola (26%) continues to lead, with both MT and ToM surveys showing Frank Psaila (10%) and David Casa (9%) as the likely two to battle it out for the PN’s second seat.
Francis Zammit Dimech (2%) and Peter Agius (2%) may end up posing a threat to the PL’s Cutajar. With the pair polling just behind the young candidate in the ToM poll, could the PN somehow sneak in once again and capture a highly unlikely third seat?
Norman Lowell does remain the most popular third-party candidate (1.3%) with his popularity a key driver behind the emergence of Imperium Europa in the surveys. IE does still poll behind Alternativa Demokratika in Torca’s poll, just holding on to its status as Malta’s third largest party.
It should be noted that the survey conducted by Torca and ToM both removed undecided voters, with MT showing that 41.8% of their respondents were still unsure about whom to give their number one vote to.
Praised for its methodology in closely predicting the 2017 general election, Torca uses a scientific method called the Multiple Imputation Technique to take out the ‘don’t knows’ and ‘will not votes’ from the equation and provide a “clearer picture” of the final results.
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