Almost €30,000 in Facebook advertising connected to the 2022 general election listed as being paid for by Bernard Grech was not declared in the Nationalist Party leader’s post-election financial declarations.

The Party has insisted with The Malta Independent that the expenses were incurred and paid for by the PN, even though the adverts in question were listed as being paid for by Grech.

An analysis into the social media spending on the PN leader’s Facebook page during the general election campaign in February and March showed that there were a total of 142 adverts placed between 21 February and 10 March which were marked as being paid for by Grech.

These 142 adverts amounted to a total spend of at least €29,300. Facebook’s Ad Library, which was the source of this data, does not provide the exact amount of money spent on each ad, instead giving a range of how much money was spent on each advert.

So, for instance, one such example is an advert which was run on Grech’s Facebook page promoting a social media post about the PN’s main economic proposals.  Facebook’s figures show that between €4,500 and €5,000 was spent on this advert, which ran between 24 February and 7 March.

This advert was marked as being paid for by Grech.

While it was therefore not possible to calculate the exact amount of money spent across these 142 ads, it was possible to take the minimum number presented by Facebook in each range which ultimately led to a total of €29,300 being spent.

The real figure is likely larger than that, particularly because 16 out of the 142 adverts in question were not taken into consideration when reaching the above figure, because Facebook simply said that less than €100 was spent on each of these ads.

Facebook’s policy on advertisements on their platform which are connected to social issues or elections is that each of these ads needs to have a disclaimer showing who is funding the ad.

In the case of these 142 adverts, the disclaimer is in Grech’s name, which means that the ad explicitly says “paid for by Bernard Grech” when it is being circulated to the public.

Furthermore, details found through Facebook’s Ad Library show that the ads in question were registered to an email account which used Grech’s personal domain and to his home address in Mosta. 

The phone number associated with the adverts though, was that of a Party official.

These adverts all ran between 21 February and 10 March.  After that, Grech’s page ran a further 14 adverts which were all without a disclaimer and which were ultimately deactivated and taken down by Facebook.

All other adverts after that were marked as being “paid for by the Partit Nazzjonalista” and registered to the PN’s website, email domain and the address of its headquarters.

By law, every electoral candidate must declare all of their income and expenditure throughout the electoral campaign. No candidate can exceed €20,000 per district in spending throughout the campaign.

Grech’s electoral declaration showed that he had spent €0 – nothing – throughout the campaign.

Asked why the PN leader had not declared the spending which was registered in his name on his financial declaration and whether this constituted a breach of electoral law, a spokesperson for the Party said that “all posts and adverts on Bernard Grech’s page where part of the wider Partit Nazzjonalista strategy and campaign, thus, expenses were incurred and paid by Partit Nazzjonalista and will be declared in the Party's financial statements for 2022 as part of the overall election expenses”.

“These financial statements shall be available for public scrutiny when they are filed with the Electoral Commission as required by law,” the spokesperson told The Malta Independent on Sunday.

“The fact that the adverts are being shown as paid for by Bernard Grech and linked to an email to his name is only due to the fact that he is the owner of the page,” the spokesperson added.

Despite Grech being the owner of his Facebook page though, it is still possible for another entity to be declared as the one paying for the adverts – as the PN itself did later on in the electoral campaign.

Another such example is in the case of Robert Abela on the other side of the political fence.  Like in Grech’s case, the Labour Party leader’s Facebook page was used as a key part of the Party’s electoral campaign strategy, with a significant number of adverts being run through it.

However, every one of these ads was marked with a disclaimer saying “paid for by Partit Laburista”. 

 

Were party leaders in line with electoral law?

Malta’s electoral law states: “The maximum sum paid and, or expenses incurred by or on behalf of a candidate at an election of members of the House of Representatives, and, or by his election agent, whether before, during, or after an election on account of or in respect of the conduct of such election, shall not exceed the sum of twenty thousand euro (€20,000) from every electoral district.”

Technically one may question whether both Abela and Grech were in line with this article of the law with the spending on their respective Facebook pages during the electoral campaign.

Despite them being Party leaders, Abela and Grech are considered to be like any other candidate in the eyes of the law, including when it comes to electoral campaign spending.

The key part of the above article of the law is “expenses incurred by or on behalf of a candidate” – seemingly implying that even expenses incurred by people or entities that are spending money on behalf of an electoral candidate should be declared and should respect the maximum spending threshold established by the law.

Yet, both Grech and Abela saw tens of thousands of euros in advertising spending funnelled into their respective Facebook pages throughout the electoral campaign.

The amount of money spent, while difficult to quantify, was certainly over the €40,000 that Grech and Abela would have been allowed to spend (given that they contested on two districts) as candidates.