Speculation is mounting that Prime Minister Robert Abela is on the verge of calling an early general election - with the calling of a Labour Party Congress this week the latest tell-tale sign.

If called at the end of the Congress, which would be on Friday 17 April, then the country would be going to the polls in late May or early June. 

That means that Abela would not have completed the full five-year legislature in office: that term would have expired in March 2027.  Yet all signs are now pointing in the direction of the general election being held nine months early.

This may seem like an odd decision, particularly when keeping in mind that Abela's Labour Party has the largest vote mandate in Malta's post-independence history to govern under.

So why might Robert Abela be thinking that it will be beneficial to cut his legislature a few months short?

The international instability outside of Abela's control

One of the biggest factors at play is likely the international situation. 

Last January, Abela told the MaltaToday newsroom in an informal Q&A that he would not call an early general election - with the caveat that geopolitical disruptions may make going to the polls early something which is, in his mind at least, in the national interest.

The Iran War started at the end of February and has since wrecked economic havoc, with Iran refusing to capitulate - despite its top leaders being killed - and instead responding by retaliating against neighbouring countries which harbour US bases, and, more significantly, by closing the Strait of Hormuz.

This past week, a two-week ceasefire was agreed that resulted in - among other things - the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz. But it remains a pact which is tenuous at best and which, considering the extreme whims of the USA's commander in chief, can collapse at any moment.

The economic impact of this war has been significant: fuel and energy prices have shot up through the roof in many European countries.  Abela himself told an audience during a party activity that if it were not for the government's subsidies which keep prices as they are, then fuel would be up to 45% more expensive.

There is little that Abela - or any government, for that matter - can do to control what is happening abroad. 

But Abela will be conscious of the impact that previous increases in inflation have had on his popularity.  The last time Malta was hit by high inflation rates was in 2024 and while the government tried to act by subsidising the price of certain foodstuffs, it was only a drop in the ocean in the grander context of things.

Back then, the Nationalist Party over-performed on its expectations in the European Parliament elections.  Inflation was not the only factor, for sure, but it probably played a part.

The inflationary impacts of this latest international crisis in Iran are less clear as of now, but the longer the uncertainty remains - especially if the war were to flare up again in two weeks - then the greater the economic impact may be.

The PN's increasing momentum

Polls are only a snapshot of a particular moment and particular situations. There is a saying that a week is a long time in politics, and that's something which people must keep in mind when looking at electoral polls.

But it would be remiss to discard the fact that the polls have shown a bit of a pattern. 

MaltaToday's four most recent electoral polls - spanning between November 2025 and March 2026 - have been pretty much identical: the Labour Party leads the way but by a margin of only around 8,000 votes.

Polls by well-known pollster Vince Marmara meanwhile paint a picture which is more favourable to the Labour Party's prospects: his most recent survey last February suggests a margin of victory of around 25,000 votes.

Both of these pollsters over-estimated the PL's margin of victory in the last European Parliament elections in 2024, so one cannot take them as being the perfect reflection of what could happen on election day.

The fact remains though that the Nationalist Party has gained on the Labour Party - despite going through the trauma of yet another change in leadership, which came via an election which was won by the thinnest of thin margins.

In a short period of time, Alex Borg has galvanised the PN and re-invigorated the party.  It seems to be making inroads with younger voters and with voters who had previously turned their back on the party.  Borg has also successfully steered himself and the party clear of major controversy so far, and has come out with several new policy ideas - a principle that those before him seemed to treat as secondary.

A part of the decision to go to the polls early may well be in order to undercut the momentum that Borg is building as PN leader. 

An extra nine months at the helm may give Borg the time to make the PN a lot more electable than it is today.  Call an election now while the PL is still ahead in the polls, and potentially consign the PN to the opposition benches for another five years, though, and it would kill the progress that the party has made and reinforce the perception out there that the PN may well never make it back into government.

Court cases

Another key factor which may be governing Robert Abela's thought process is news coming from high-profile cases in the law courts.

This is something that Abela will be wary of, particularly because he doesn't have to cast his memory too far back to understand the impact that court proceedings may have on an election campaign.

Just two years ago, the Vitals inquiry concluded and resulted in the charging of Joseph Muscat, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi, Chris Fearne, Edward Scicluna, and a host of others just a month before the European Parliament elections. Those cases are still ongoing.

Abela huffed and puffed against the inquiring magistrate, claimed that the inquiry had been purposely closed at such a time to impact the elections, and raised doubts on the inquiry's contents - but none of that changed how the following month the PN gained a lot more ground on the PL than was expected.

To suggest that the case against Muscat and company did not have an impact on the election would be naïve, which is why Abela is keeping this in mind.

The deficit of incumbency

We hear and write about the power of incumbency a lot.  The power of incumbency is the innate advantage that one party gains when it is the one governing.  The very fact that this article is being written, for instance, is down to the Labour Party having the benefit of being in power and being able to decide when the general election will be.

There is a lot more than that to the power of incumbency.  For instance, it is almost a tradition to see permits issued, job vacancies at government agencies suddenly start to crop up a lot more, and much more.

But there also comes a point when the power of incumbency becomes the deficit of incumbency.

Since Malta's independence in 1964, no political party has ever been elected for four consecutive terms.  The most any party has achieved is three: the PL in 1971, 1976, and 1981; the PN in 1998, 2003, and 2008.  In both cases, the third of those terms was by a whisker: in 1981, the PL actually received fewer votes than the PN but was only elected because it won more seats - an electoral quirk that resulted in constitutional amendments guaranteeing that the party with most votes gets to Castille, and in 2008, the PN only won by a one-seat majority which came back to bite them later in their term.

The PL is already ahead of that curve simply on the basis that all of its three consecutive electoral triumphs were by huge majorities. 

These triumphs were built on the combination of the feel-good factor that the PL injected into the country's economy, and the political incompetence of an opponent which seemed more intent on turning on itself than on offering a viable alternative government.

That picture has now changed. 

The feel-good factor in the economy is not quite gone, but it's old news. People are now more concerned about issues like inflation, property prices, overpopulation, and over-development.  While inflation hasn't been in the government's control, the other three can credibly be put down as consequences of the PL's economic philosophy of the last 13 years.

The PN, meanwhile, as discussed earlier, has been gathering in momentum and seems to have firmly settled behind a leader who is putting his priorities in building the party's internal structures and also making it seem electable.

This is where the deficit of incumbency overrides the power of incumbency.  People could well be getting tired of the PL and its governing of the country, and may choose to seek an alternative. 

By Abela's own admission, the abstention rate in the European Parliament elections two years ago was a clear message to the PL that it needed to renew and rejuvenate itself. 

He emphasised at that point that the people were still not seeing the PN as an alternative.  There is credence to that: abstention rates were high and there was a record number of people who voted for small parties and independent candidates.  But a PN with momentum could change that.

An early election before the government feels the full consequences of some of the problems of its own making and before the PN can gather enough steam could be the most viable way for Abela to do what nobody before him has ever done and keep his party in government for a fourth consecutive term.