Unassailable Lead No More

The election saw Labour’s lead cut down from 42,000 to 8,000 votes with a large and unexpected swing in votes towards the PN, a party many had completely written off before Sunday. The result has brought about renewed optimism in anyone with an interest in having Labour’s power brought under control, and rightly so. A party with the wind in its sails, and more importantly, which is perceived by the public as having the advantage, is more likely to convince undecided voters in the next general election.

The PN’s performance will certainly give the party a boost in the immediate term, but the long-term prognosis is less clear and depends largely on how one interprets the election results. In a nutshell, the massive swing away from Labour was the result of some 10,000 Labour voters opting to vote for the PN and another 10,000 Labour voters choosing to vote for third parties and independents. Each election has its own context, but it’s worth comparing the results of the 2019 MEP election with Saturday’s. Conveniently, the number of eligible voters, the turnout, and the number of invalidated votes were practically identical, making it a bit easier to understand the data.

This year, Labour obtained 23,462 fewer votes than it did in its last EP outing, and with no changes to the abstention and invalid vote rate, one explanation is that these voters deserted the party in favour of other candidates. Another possibility is that 20,000 Labour voters decided to stay at home and were replaced by 20,000 non-Labour voters. Either way, the bottom line is that the PN has obtained 10,000 votes it didn’t have going into this election while Labour has lost 20,000. Meanwhile, the non-PNPL share of the vote continues to increase, reaching over 12% of valid votes cast this time around.

One interpretation of the result is that the PN is on the path to recovery and has started to convince more people. Another is that the electorate is growing increasingly fed up with Labour and has made its removal from office a priority over finding the perfect replacement. The likelihood is a bit of both, but there is another way of looking at the result: that Sunday’s result is simply what you get when you take a tiny country obsessed with international recognition and give it its first international celebrity.   

The Roberta Metsola Show

The undisputed star of the election was Roberta Metsola, who managed to obtain a staggering 87,473 first count votes. To put this into perspective, it amounts to 80% of all votes received by the PN and 30% of all votes cast in the election. Competent, charismatic, and confident, at the end of a successful first term as President of the European Parliament, it’s probably safe to say that a majority of the population had Metsola’s name somewhere on their ballot sheet.

While unprecedented in numerical terms, few can say this result is surprising. Irrespective of which local tribe you belong to, it is difficult to deny that seeing a Maltese person occupy an important international role and rub shoulders with world leaders is a big source of pride. The position also places her a step above other MEPs and candidates and makes her somewhat immune to petty partisan politics.

Did Cassola Rain On Metsola’s Parade?

In the run-up to the election, we saw several attempts by the PN and its supporters to dissuade those who intended to vote for Arnold Cassola from doing so. The argument – possibly new to some of the younger voters, but all too familiar to those that remember the pre-Muscat era – is that you shouldn’t vote for independent candidates because by doing so you’re only helping Labour. The reasoning is that, assuming Labour has a larger, more loyal core voter base, anyone intending to weaken the government who doesn’t vote for the PN is wasting their vote.

Whether or not you subscribe to this logic will likely determine how you feel about Cassola’s candidature and performance. Subscribers to it will likely point to the 12,000 or so votes Cassola got and argue that they would have gone to the PN in his absence. That a majority of voters who voted for Cassola did not want to vote for the government seems quite clear to me. I am less certain about whether we can assume that their votes would have gone to the PN otherwise.

Metsola played her cards almost perfectly in the run-up to the election, and aside from her position on Palestine, there hasn’t been much to criticise her for. While it is possible she would have obtained some of Cassola’s votes had she taken a different stance, I suspect it would have constituted a minor amount. What seems more realistic to me is that Cassola offered many Labour voters an alternative they could stomach to voice their disapproval of the government. We would also do well to remember the people who always vote for third parties.

Rather than taking something away from the PN, it seems like Cassola’s biggest impact was providing refuge for disaffected Labour voters. One can dwell on whether these voters might have stayed home in Cassola’s absence, or if they might have voted for another independent candidate, or even Labour. All possibilities, but what is certain is that 10,000 voters didn’t feel comfortable voting PN, despite it having fielded the most popular EP candidate ever.

Where Does This Leave the PN?

Bernard Grech is often criticised for not being an inspiring enough leader. I am still convinced that it is a reasonable analysis, but the result does offer a new perspective. Metsola was clearly the driving force behind the PN’s performance in this election, but it also seems to be the case that Grech has continued to silently heal many of the wounds that have plagued the PN in recent years. And while he might not be the most exciting leader, one might argue that after the last few years it’s what many voters want.

The biggest challenge for the PN after this result will be keeping the momentum up until the next general election. Saturday’s result makes it clear that there is growing discontent with the government and that the electorate is on the lookout for an alternative. It is also clear that this group includes at least 10,000 people who fall into this category but are still unwilling to vote for the PN.

MaltaToday’s last survey before the election was correct in its prediction that the PN would get 41.4% of the vote, with the party’s tally amounting to 42%. What the survey got wrong was its predicted vote tally for Labour. The party was expected to clinch 50% of the vote, down from 54% in the previous election. It ended up walking away with 45.3% while others obtained 12.7% compared to 7.9% predicted. This shows that the survey was picking up a change in public sentiment, even among Labour voters; it just didn’t pick up the full extent of it. It is also clear that many people were not comfortable admitting they intended to vote against the party.

Can Robert Abela Save The Day For Labour?

Sunday’s result appears to have come as a shock to Labour, which is still struggling to decide on what narrative it wants to adopt. Whatever the decision by the party leadership, the damage has been done and the blame game has already started among Labour grassroots. There’s something about winning that keeps people together and the second it stops happening, chaos ensues – just ask Lawrence Gonzi.

In addition to the electoral result, Labour also has Joseph Muscat to deal with. There will surely be those that believe the result was a result of Labour not distancing itself enough from Muscat, and probably many more who will argue that the opposite is true. The party might be tempted to simply see this as a reason to ramp up favours to angry voters, and this could work out but with diminishing returns. We also saw a number of individuals saying they had not voted because of “cheap labour” or “too much regulation”; a reminder for Labour that economic growth comes with its electoral downsides as well. Labour will be aware that these grievances aren’t as easily addressable as those of people who want a flat or nice government job.

Then there are those who are fed up with corruption and who long for a return to normality. Before the election, Abela targeted the magistrate who completed the Vitals inquiry, accusing them of political terrorism in statements that can only be described as fascist-sounding. Abela urged the nation to respond to the magistrate’s alleged political terrorism with their vote, in what many viewed as an attempt to mobilise its vote base ahead of the election.

Labour played the “the magistrate is trying to lose us the election” card to rally voters – whether that worked remains unclear. If I were Abela, I wouldn’t want to know. It either means Labour needed to cast doubt and instigate hatred against the judiciary to hang on to its electoral advantage, or that people saw through his strategy and were put off by it so much that it backfired.

Whichever way you look at it, Labour now has to choose between doubling down on the same strategies it has used in recent years, and which have gotten it to this point, or it can start to address the countless corruption allegations will continue to weigh down on its bid to remain in power.