Nationalist Party MEP Roberta Metsola and former Labour Party leader Alfred Sant appear to be their respective parties’ frontrunners in the European election taking place next May, a survey commissioned by The Malta Independent shows.

A representative sample of 300 people were interviewed by telephone by Business Leaders Malta on 5 and 6 March and asked to name their favourite candidate; the survey shows that as far as the PN is concerned, the two incumbents – Dr Metsola and David Casa – enjoy a considerable lead over other candidates.

But the situation is considerably different in the Labour Party, not least because only one of its four sitting MEPs – Marlene Mizzi – has been confirmed as a candidate for next May’s election. Even so, those planning to vote for a PL candidate are more likely to pick two newcomers to European politics: Dr Sant and former head of news of the party’s station Miriam Dalli.

The European elections are more than two months away, and nearly half of the survey respondents – 48% to be exact – did not pick a particular candidate, a factor which may skew results considerably. While 21% declared that they had no preferred candidate, nine per cent said that they were undecided, and a further 18% were unwilling to divulge who their favourite candidate may be, if any.

The effect the high proportion of those who did not pick a particular candidate is perhaps most clearly seen when one considers those who declared that they had voted for Alternattiva Demokratika in the last general election. The vast majority of them either said they had no particular preference or were still undecided, but this could still mean that they will end up giving their first-preference vote to one of the party’s two candidates: chairman Arnold Cassola and deputy chairman Carmel Cacopardo.

Ultimately, however, Dr Metsola appears to be the frontrunner: excluding non-committal respondents, she was considered the favourite candidate of 19.9% of the people interviewed. Dr Sant, who got a standing ovation last month when he addressed Labour’s general conference for the first time since he resigned the party leadership in 2008, was mentioned by a further 16.7%.

Mr Casa is in third place after earning mentions by 15.4% of those who made a choice. Should these proportions be reflected in the final result, the two PN MEPs and the former Labour leader would be elected on the first count, as the quota would be a seventh of all valid votes plus one, roughly equivalent to 14.3% of the total vote.

Dr Dalli would come close, as she was picked by 12.2% of the respondents who named an individual candidate.

Matters become more complicated further down the list, not least because the margin of error inherent to surveys has a greater impact.

Both the PN and the PL appear to be aiming to win three seats – the former explicitly maintains so, while the latter has refused to declare that it is hoping to retain its existing four seats.

As it turns out, the PN’s third-placed candidate in our survey – Norman Vella – has a clear lead over fellow PN candidates. He was the favourite candidate of 8.3%: veteran MP Francis Zammit Dimech was in fourth place, among PN candidates, with 3.2%.

The situation within the PL is less clear, with two candidates seemingly vying for third place. Marlene Mizzi has a slight lead with 4.5%, but Cyrus Engerer was only slightly behind with 3.8%.

Obviously, with more than two months to go before the election takes place, the situation is likely to change considerably.

The survey question also overlooks another factor that can prove to be crucial in the election: the transfer of votes under Malta’s single transferable vote system. A candidate can easily end up elected over someone who obtained more first count-votes by inheriting a greater number of votes in subsequent counts.

One only needs to go back to the last round of European elections for an example: John Attard Montalto received considerably fewer first-count votes than Ms Mizzi and Joseph Cuschieri, but was ultimately elected at their expense. Mr Cuschieri ended up in the EP when Malta was granted a sixth seat, and Ms Mizzi was elected in a casual election to fill the seat vacated by Finance Minister Edward Scicluna last year.