The Labour and Nationalist parties have dominated Maltese politics since Malta gained independence in 1964, but most of the time there have been third parties throwing their names into the ring, offering an alternative for voters.

Third parties contesting a general election in Malta face an uphill battle. The PN and PL have their own party media, and both have widespread reach. In addition, any decisions regarding the electoral system are made by the MPs elected in Parliament, and third parties have complained about certain mechanisms, such as the gender corrective mechanism recently introduced which comes into force only when two parties are elected. Third parties have often complained that they are not given equal representation on TV.

The most well-known of the third parties in modern times is the Alternattiva Demokratika, which has been active in the local political scene for the past 30 years. Today it is known as ADPD after a merger with the Partit Demokratiku.

AD was created in 1989, when the Whip of the Malta Labour Party at the time, Wenzu Mintoff, as well as the president of the Malta Labour Party, Toni Abela, resigned from their posts and together with a number of environmental activists formed the Alternattiva Demokratika.

The first election the party officially contested was in 1992.

1992 was the party’s second best performance to date, having won 4,186 first count votes in total or 1.69% of the total. Still, it did not win enough votes on a district to be given a seat.

The AD’s best performance was in 2013, where it won 5,506 votes across the country, equivalent to 1.8% of the total votes. Still, this was not enough for the party to earn a seat in Parliament. 2013 saw the Nationalist Party lose power and the Labour Party win by a landslide and it is likely that AD’s result might have, at least partly, been due to disgruntled Nationalist supporters casting their vote for a third party.

The third party, which one could say had the most success since 1992, was the Partit Demokratiku. Formed in 2016, the party included Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia, two former PL MPs who split from the Labour Party. The Labour Party was at the heart of controversy due to corruption scandals at the time.

The Partit Demokratiku, known as the PD, formed an alliance with the Nationalist Party. PD candidates contested the 2017 general election under the PN banner, although they had tal-Orangjo written next to their name to identify that they are representing PD. Both Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia were elected in the 2017 election for the PD. This moment could be seen from two viewpoints. The first being that two third party candidates were elected to Parliament, the second being that it does not really count as a third party seeing candidates elected given that they contested under the PN banner.

In 2020, AD and PD chose the merge. Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia had, however, by this time resigned from PD wanting to make space for new people, and became independent MPs until the end of the last legislature. Both did not contest the 2022 election.

This meant that the PD, going into the merger with AD, did not have its two MPs in Parliament. This likely impacted the chances ADPD had in the 2022 election. It was probably still wise for the two parties to merge to head into the election united, as otherwise they might have just split the votes the party received. In 2022, ADPD won 4,747 votes, which is 1.61% of the votes cast. This was higher than the 2,564 votes the AD had got on its own in 2017.

ADPD this year filed a case with the constitutional court arguing that their 4,747 first count votes was more than the national quota of votes and should therefore transfer into them being granted a seat in Parliament.

Aside from AD and PD there have been a number of other third parties in Malta’s political field, however they always only get a small number of votes.

An example would be ABBA, VOLT and MPM who all contested the 2022 election, however these other parties have not really made any headway or impact. A number of third parties have come and gone in recent years. Alleanza Liberali, Azzjoni Nazzjonali, the Gozitan Party are just three who had contested in the recent past.

It remains extremely difficult for third parties to get candidates elected. Excluding Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia, the last time a third party candidate was elected to Parliament was in 1962, when the Democratic Nationalist Party got four seats, the Christian Workers Party got four seats and the Progressive Constitutionalist Party got one seat.