The gap of around 8,500 votes registered between the Labour Party and Nationalist Party in the European Parliament election is “more accurate” than the 20,000-vote margin recorded in the local council poll, newly-elected Mosta councillor and MŻPN president Thomas De Martino said.

De Martino, 23 years of age and one of the emerging politicians within the PN, argued that an EP election resembles a general election more closely than local council elections. He explained that this is because each locality has its distinct issues, candidates, demographics and contexts.

“It would be a mistake to compare localities like-with-like,” he said. “Mosta’s issues are not Tarxien’s issues, nor are they Żejtun’s or Mellieħa’s.” Local elections function at a much more personal level. De Martino noted that some people vote for a candidate on the simple basis that they knew who they were and/or simply because they knew that a candidate visits the same band club they do.

“One cannot amalgamate all votes from the local council elections and come up with a single accurate voter gap to represent the gap between the two major parties.” The EP election is much closer to a general election in this regard.

De Martino remarked that it would be more responsible if one could read the story behind each locality’s result instead.

He noted that if one delves further into the results this way, they will observe a trend across the board – that the PN has reduced the gap “virtually everywhere”. De Martino said that in most of the localities across Malta and Gozo, the Nationalist Party gained votes/seats while the Labour Party lost. This includes localities like Mosta and Siġġiewi, where power changed hands altogether in favour of PN.

“This is marking a positive demographic shift in favour of the Nationalist Party,” he said, “The people have now trusted us to provide better administration in these localities, including in Mosta.”

The PN youngster said the Nationalist Party had reached its targets in all localities. He mentioned San Ġwann, Mosta, Mellieħa, Birkirkara and Msida as examples where the PN made substantial progress. Before the PN won its majority in Msida this June, the locality was last declared blue over 20 years ago, back in 2003; up until this year, it had been under the control of the Labour Party since 2006.

“You can make a case that this reflects on the national situation, but I believe it would be more factual to analyse localities on a micro-level,” De Martino remarked.

De Martino added that the Nationalist Party wants to keep gaining electoral majorities so that it can provide better administration, not to simply boast about winning. In this regard, he referenced some of the many issues his locality has faced in recent years, such as “awful” traffic management, “even worse” project management (due to many works being carried out simultaneously), the infamous trees’ debacle and the fact that “day-to-day, Mosta has become more congested than ever”.

He described that the result achieved in Mosta reflected a “clear” general trend of the Nationalist Party’s positive gains across the Maltese islands. He also said that Mosta highlighted this trend to a greater extent than other places due to the issues the locality faced and their salient nature in the public eye.

He argued that the European Parliament elections featured a more accurate reflection of the electorate’s thoughts on the two major parties – the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party. De Martino backed up his opinion by describing how MEP elections featured the same list of candidates, and therefore, a universal ballot sheet, across all of Malta and Gozo, and because this election featured a single national discussion. De Martino said that with MEP issues being national (rather than local) and with the entire electorate able to vote for any of the same candidates, this result more accurately reflects the national sentiment on the two major political parties.

When asked if the differing voter gaps could be pinned to Roberta Metsola’s impact, De Martino said that while she was obviously a factor as a “political phenomenon”, she was not the sole reason behind the 11,500-vote difference in the two voter gaps.

“The results were a very positive boost to the PN for several reasons,” he said. De Martino also emphasized the significant "moral boost" experienced by the party, its members, activists, councillors, and others following these results. He noted that this uplift is particularly powerful because "after 11 years, we are seeing progress".

The June elections provided one major takeaway for the Nationalist Party and political analysts: that the incumbent Labour Party has lost its supermajority among the electorate. Despite PN losing the 2022 general election by a whopping 39,474 votes just 27 months ago, a similar voter gap between the two major parties was not observed this June, unlike the respective voter gaps of 2019 of around 47,000 votes for local council elections and 42,500 votes in that year’s EP elections.

De Martino noted that the voter gap observed during this June’s MEP elections was reduced “more than any survey could have imagined” in a way that not even many people expected. He stated that the “historic” gap of 8,500 votes means that “anything is possible” now in the Maltese political scene for the forthcoming years.

“Finally, the numbers were in our favour and we got the third European Parliament seat, which was PN’s target and was secured comfortably,” De Martino said.

He also noted how this is the Nationalist Party’s best ever result in the European Parliament elections – both in terms of votes received and the distance to the Labour Party, who has always won these elections by 20,000-30,000 votes, even while the Nationalist Party was winning general elections, he said.

‘We can win the next general election’

De Martino reiterated the sentiments of PN leader Bernard Grech, expressing confidence that the PN can win the next election.

“Everything is possible [now],” the Mosta councillor said.

According to De Martino, the recent electoral results have given the party a fresh motivation. He described that while the party’s mindset should always be to win elections, the blow of the 2022 general election was so great that it had made some people believe that a victory in the following general election was not possible. Following the 8 June EP election, this sentiment has been forgotten.

“A gap of 8,500 [votes] is nothing; it can change tomorrow,” he said positively.

De Martino said that with the PN’s recent overachieving results, winning the next general election is now “very doable, or rather, very possible”. The next general election will take place within the next three years, at farthest being in 2027, though the precise date falls under Prime Minister Robert Abela’s prerogative and allows him the option to call it early, should he wish.

The idea of the next general election being called early does not bother De Martino. The MŻPN president stated that “the Nationalist Party is very capable of winning and is ready to win it”, irrespective of when it will be called.

“There is only a gap of 8,500 votes,” he said. “Obviously, things can change quickly, but the perspectives have shifted very positively.”

The youth firmly believes that the PN can overthrow the incumbent Labour government in the next time of asking, even without Roberta Metsola running, he said.

De Martino said that the recent MEP elections’ results that provided this unexpected four-digit voter gap emerged thanks to a combination of the electorate’s worsening opinion over the government and its governance, as well as the Opposition’s “good politics”.

The Mosta councillor thinks that the main factor behind this election result is the growing opinion of people and the Nationalist Party that “the government is failing” and that the electorate displayed this through many protest votes against this administration’s governance.

He narrated that this opinion stems from the daily discontent felt through everyday problems ranging across diverse issues like traffic, overpopulation, environmental issues, the increasing cost of living and recurring rage through the continuous revelations of corruption scandals. De Martino has no doubt that overpopulation is contributing to the development among many other issues, such as water and electricity cutoffs, traffic problems, environmental concerns and even the cost-of-living crisis.

“Many feel that the government is not doing enough to address this crisis, and even if they are, they are burning through many thousands and millions of our [taxpayer] money on large salaries for people from the party’s core,” he said, describing one of the roots behind growing frustrations on present governance.

In this regard, De Martino also mentioned the ongoing Vitals case and how the “theft” of €400m has enraged so many people – especially since the health sector is so close to people’s hearts and requires great investment, he added. De Martino said that aside from the clear political, legal and administrative mismanagement in the infamous hospitals deal, we have evidence through the courts that there was fraud and collusion in this case.

Additionally, he stated that some voters opted not to vote for the Labour Party again due to personal dissatisfaction that they were not served by the party since the last general election in 2022. De Martino said that an aggregate of all of these factors is what contributed to PN’s overachieving results and to this new hope going forward.

Party finances and regeneration

De Martino told this newsroom that the recent results were sweeter for people within the Nationalist Party due to the stark difference in the parties’ finances. He also said that PN’s limited finances affected the recent electoral campaign.

He explained that although it's well known the PN's finances limit the party in what it can do, for them, it feels like a David versus Goliath situation because the "PN is competing with a bottomless well". De Martino stated that this impacts all aspects of the party, including its logistics, public relations (PR), advertising and social media, which requires thousands of euros by itself through filming, video editing, promotion and many other things.

“The Labour Party has experts everywhere, PN does not. It is always competing with someone who is a level above, making the result even sweeter,” he said.

He continued that on the other hand, there is the Labour Party with more resources, with people being introduced into government and given government salaries, and with an across-the-board system to give tenders to people close to the party, for these favours to be returned with free work.

Moving from financial resources to human resources, De Martino told this newsroom that, in his opinion, the Nationalist Party is keeping a healthy balance between experience and regeneration. The MŻPN president said that while he wants more youths in the party, it is important to balance energetic new blood with experience.

He said that his party is doing well to promote new faces as seen in the recent local council elections, which followed the election of new MPs in 2022.

On this, he continued that the Nationalist Party “is doing everything it can to promote youths” and that this was exemplified through the fielding of two youth candidates in its EP election line-up, and many others in the local council elections.

De Martino said that the party can increase its spotlights on youths – something which he plans on orchestrating through future MŻPN initiatives. He said that his party insists that it must provide more space for youths and that it is natural for people not to always agree with every issue, before stressing the importance that youths continue to be part of these internal discussions.