The MEP elections are now only a matter of months away, but certain aspects which may well set this year’s election apart from others in the past are already beginning to emerge. The Malta Independent on Sunday dives deep into recent news and compares how it stacks up to past elections: from the ballot sheet size, to candidates recontesting or not recontesting.

 

The anatomy of the MEP ballot sheet

The ballot sheet for the European Parliament election is something unique insofar as the Maltese political landscape goes, on the simple basis that it’s the only time that everybody will have the same one.

It means that the field of candidates is far smaller than in a general election – but the field so far for the 2024 elections, less than five months out now, is quite a bit smaller than it ever has been.

The major parties usually field anywhere between 10 and 14 candidates for the elections, with the very first MEP election in 2004, when both the PN and PL fielded eight candidates each, being the exception.

The PL traditionally field slightly more candidates than the PN: 12 to 10 in 2009, 12 to 11 in 2014 and 14 to 10 in 2019.

However so far the PL only has six candidates confirmed: the recontesting Alex Agius Saliba, and newcomers Steve Ellul, Daniel Attard, Marija Sarah Vella Gafa, Jesmond Bonello and Clint Azzopardi Flores. The name of former MEP and former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has cropped up this past week, but a final decision is still to be taken in this regard.

The PN, on the other hand, has names confirmed as being on the ballot sheet: recontesting Roberta Metsola and David Casa, sitting MP David Agius, second-time candidate Peter Agius and newcomers Norma Camilleri, Miriana Calleja Testaferrata de Noto and LouiseAnne Pulis.

One would be forgiven for expecting these numbers to grow in the coming weeks, and it wouldn’t be altogether unexpected.

 

What the parties will be fighting for

The country’s past elections have been something of a foregone conclusion, given the PL’s dominance in the polls – but this year it appears that there will be a fight to be won when it comes to representation in Brussels.

Ever since 2009, Malta has had six seats in the European Parliament – and it is that sixth seat which will be the most hotly contested.

As things stand, the PL has four seats to the PN’s two, having won the sixth seat from their adversaries in 2019.

But with the latest election polls showing the PL’s lead now down to anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 votes, the party will be extremely worried that this sixth seat will be lost.

The maths will back up those worries: the PN won the sixth seat back in 2014 despite losing the election by 33,677 votes. This was due to how the voting inheritance worked, as it favoured PN candidate Therese Comodini Cachia to the point that she ultimately beat now Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri by a mere 206 votes when all was said and done.

 

The constants and the ever-changing

There is a commonality between the ballot sheets for the two major parties over the years: they are by and large ever-changing.

Candidates recontesting if they fail to get elected are exceedingly rare: only the PN’s Roberta Metsola (not elected in 2004 or 2009, but was elected via casual election in that cycle) and the PL’s Robert Micallef (contested in 2004 and again in 2019, both times unsuccessfully) have appeared on the ballot sheet more than once despite having not been elected the first time.

The PN’s Peter Agius will be the third: he contested in 2019 but was not elected, and he has been on the campaign trail ever since.

There is however more of a disparity when one looks at the MEPs elected for each party.

The PN has been consistent: the party has been represented by only five different MEPs in the 20 years that Malta has been represented at the European Parliament.

Current incumbents Roberta Metsola and David Casa are two of them. Metsola has been an MEP since being elected in a casual election in 2014, and Casa has been an MEP since the very first set of elections in 2004.

Both will be seeking re-election this year once again, meaning that there is an element of continuity – as there always has been – on the PN’s ballot sheet come June.

Whereas the PN has only had five different MEPs in 20 years, the PL has had no fewer than 14 over the years.

Much has been said this year about the fact that three out of the four Labour MEPs elected in 2019 will not be recontesting for their seat, but history shows us that such a turnover between elections is not something unheard of for the party.

It will also not be the first time that there is such a difference between the sitting MEPs and the ballot sheet: the party had five MEPs between 2009 and 2014 (three elected in 2009, two by casual elections later), but only two ultimately recontested the election in 2014.

Louis Grech, John Attard Montalto and Joseph Cuschieri were the party’s MEPs elected in 2009, but the former two were replaced by Marlene Mizzi and Claudette Attard Baldacchino during the term.

Come 2014, only Mizzi and Cuschieri – who was head of the PL’s delegation but six weeks prior to the election said he wouldn’t contest the election because the PL had “already decided which candidates it wants elected” and he was “put with the losers” but was then persuaded to change his mind by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat – recontested.

As it happened, only Mizzi was elected, and there was no space for Cuschieri as the party elected Miriam Dalli and Alfred Sant in his stead.

Numerically, the situation today is quite similar: the PL has had five MEPs in this term – Miriam Dalli, Alfred Sant, Alex Agius Saliba, Josianne Cutajar and Cyrus Engerer – and (so far) three of them are not going to contest their seat again.

Only Alex Agius Saliba so far is nailed on to contest, while Engerer is the only one out of the five still a question mark.

 

105,000 votes up for grabs

That situation means that there is a grand total of 105,633 Labour votes up for grabs – equivalent to a whopping 74.7% of all of the votes which the party received during the 2019 election.

Miriam Dalli’s 63,438 votes make up the lion’s share of that number. Her tally was the highest ever polled by a Labour candidate in an MEP election, and it will no doubt be a demographic that candidates will be trying to attract.

Candidates will also have an eye on Alfred Sant’s 26,592 votes, and another on Josianne Cutajar’s 15,603 votes as they plot out their campaign trail for the coming months.

Out of the current field, Steve Ellul appears to be the one being groomed to be this year’s star candidate for the party; but the most recently approved candidate Clint Azzopardi Flores has already featured in a party press conference and addressed one of its traditional Sunday political activities as well.

Still, the PL’s current field lacks political experience coming into this election: Steve Ellul has been in the limelight for a year after being placed as Project Green CEO, but other political experience is limited to Marija Sarah Vella Gafa – mayor of Gudja – and Daniel Attard – former mayor of Mtarfa.

While the PL has always had a higher turnover in its elected MEPs, that perhaps is because it has not shied away from fielding established names for the election: Joseph Cuschieri had been an MP for a decade before he contested in 2009 to make up for Joseph Muscat’s vacancy, while Alfred Sant is a past prime minister and he contested to make up for the departures of Louis Grech and John Attard Montalto.

It is this line of thinking which is fuelling speculation that Prime Minister Robert Abela’s sudden openness towards both former MPs Rosianne Cutajar and Justyne Caruana after he exiled them from the party due to their respective scandals is in order for them to be candidates in the upcoming MEP elections.

Naturally, if Joseph Muscat were to contest, this would completely change the scenario on Labour’s end.

 

A changing of the guards?

Things on the PN’s side of the ballot sheet are less uncertain.

Roberta Metsola – whose stature has grown, not just locally but globally after she was appointed as European Parliament President – is a shoe-in for re-election, but one wonders whether questions will be asked of David Casa come June.

Casa has been elected in every election since 2004 and his support has been nothing if not stable, as he polled around the 20,000 vote mark in the last two elections. He has retained reasonable prominence, even if he was over-shadowed by his fellow PN colleague.

Still in a context where PN voters expressed that they wanted a changing of the guards in the last general elections two years ago, perhaps a similar signal will be sent come June.

The fact that the PN has a chance to win back the sixth seat will help his cause, and it will also help the hopes and aspirations of the PN’s other candidates.

At the forefront – and at the top – of the ballot sheet will be David Agius and Peter Agius. They are anomalous in the sense that David Agius is currently a sitting MP, and it is rare – although not unheard of – for the PN to field a person with such a position; while Peter Agius is a second-time candidate having failed to be elected in 2019.

Both will command significant support come election day.

 

The third party question

Something which seems likely to set the upcoming elections, apart from past iterations, is voter uncertainty.

The most recent surveys suggest that some 30% of voters will abstain – something which would be unprecedented in Malta’s post-independence history in any election. Abstention rates exhibited in surveys usually narrow the closer the election comes, but it’s anybody’s guess as to who will benefit from this narrowing.

The most recent MaltaToday survey found that support for third parties currently stands at 9.6% – equivalent to some 30,000 votes – which would again be an unprecedented level of support for the non-major parties in Malta’s post-independence history.

There is a clear sense of discontent with the major parties, and the MEP elections are usually seen by some voters as the perfect occasion to transfer this discontent onto the voting paper. It could be an opportunity for ADPD-The Green Party to make some inroads. Sandra Gauci, Ralph Cassar and Mina Jack Tolu are setting their sights on picking up votes from people unhappy with the two-party dominance.

That third parties do well is not unprecedented: Arnold Cassola, then representing Alternattiva Demokratika, received 22,938 votes in 2004 and if Malta had had six seats as it does today back then and not five, he’d have been elected.

One also has to keep in mind that Imperium Europa’s Norman Lowell received 8,238 votes in the 2019 elections.

The votes that the small parties, or independent candidates, pick up at the election will have their own impact on the overall outcome.