The next general election, whether it's called early or not, is around the corner, and as the electoral machines of the two major parties starts to grind into gear, we can start to get an idea of what this next general election will be fought on.

Recent general elections were particular ones: 2022 was against the backdrop of a country recovering from the global Covid-19 pandemic, and 2017 was against the backdrop of the most significant political scandal to shake a government since independence.

This upcoming election, where the Labour Party can seal history by becoming the first political force to win four general elections in a row, has a bit of a different feel to it, however.

The Malta Independent on Sunday dives into the bread and butter issues that may be the dominant topics in an electoral campaign which is - one way or the other - not that far away.

Subsidies and the economy

Probably the biggest achievement of this Labour administration in these years was to keep fuel, energy, and utility prices stable. 

This is despite the fact that Robert Abela has had to battle his way through a global pandemic, a war in Ukraine, and now another war in the Middle East which is having a significant impact on the oil market in particular.

Yet as Europeans on the mainland contend with rising fuel prices and rising energy prices, Malta's prices have remained identical - and are the lowest in the European Union.

This is an aspect that Robert Abela has already started to focus on in his political discourse around the election and the differences between his party and the PN.  He oft cites the notion that the PN's philosophy in moments of economic difficulty was to let the market dictate what happens, rather than to step in and take on the burden itself.

While the PN's messaging around the fuel and energy subsidies was inconsistent when they started being used, Alex Borg has since ascertained unequivocally that if elected to government a PN administration would maintain the subsidies.

Abela's counter argument to this, however, is that the PN does not have the economic credibility - or indeed ability - to be able to supercharge Malta's economy enough to be able to sustain those subsidies.

Borg will have his work cut out to prove that his party has the credentials to keep on building on Malta's economy - an economy which has been the highlight of Labour's time in power.

It's clear that it's a topic that Abela himself will lean upon.  This week on XTRA he spelled it out quite simply: the next election, he said, "will decide what happens when you flick a switch to turn on the light or when you go to fill up your car."

Environment & Planning

The PL made the environment one of the cornerstones of its 2022 general election campaign, coming out with flashy renders of new urban green spaces pockmarked around the country.

Fast forward four years, and none of those flashy renders are anywhere near coming to fruition.  Some have been deemed to be unfeasible and scrapped, others are still in the administrative stages.  Project Green, the entity opened precisely to work on creating new green spaces and sprucing up existing ones has done good work, but the fact is that none of the projects that the PL promised in its manifesto are anywhere near being completed.

This is slightly made up for by the fact that major areas such as Manoel Island, White Rocks, Fort Tigne, and Fort San Salvatore had not been mentioned as potential open spaces in the PL's electoral manifesto.

But the fact remains that the PL doesn't hold much credibility in people's eyes when it comes to the environment - particularly as any promises made are against the backdrop of over-development which the current administration has done very little to curb.

The planning reforms that the government attempted to push through on the sly last year will only reinforce the notion that the PL is not to be trusted when it comes to the planning sector and the environment.

The flipside, however, is that PN is traditionally not considered to be particularly credible on this topic either.  This was the party whose government added swathes of ODZ land into the development zones back in 2006 - a decision which the country is only now really feeling the consequences of.

Alex Borg has pledged long-overdue revisions to the country's local plans, a new skyline policy, and a law that would enshrine safeguarding the environment in the Constitution - but the greater issue for him will be convincing people that the PN can fulfil these promises and get Malta to turn the corner away from heavy development.

This is a topic which may drive people to voting for smaller political parties, with both ADPD and Momentum being essentially green parties.  The tendency to vote for these parties in general elections is far lower than in the case of European Parliament and Local Council elections, but it remains a possibility - a possibility that the two major parties will want to avoid.

Mass transport

Without a doubt, the country's transport situation will be a point of significance throughout the election campaign - with the greatest focus being on a mass transport system for the islands.

This already had some prominence in the run-up to the 2022 general election: the PL promised that more technical studies into the idea of a metro would take place if it were to be elected, while the PN revolved its transport ideas around a trackless tram system which it promised would be up and running within one legislature.

The electoral campaign was after the PL had unveiled initial plans for a €6.2 billion metro system - but upon being elected the trail went cold for quite a while.  That was until Abela last year said that the plans had been revised to be a hybrid underground and overground system which would cost €2.8 billion to implement instead.

This was within the context, though that Finance Minister Clyde Caruana consistently poured cold water of the project and after the government's own National Transport Master Plan for 2030 excluded the metro idea completely. 

Instead, then, the PL had floated the idea of a bus rapid transit system - which is decidedly similar to the PN's trackless tram idea.

This will be an important battleground in the upcoming general election. 

PN leader Alex Borg has already made it an important electoral priority of his: he promised that within the first 100 days of a PN government, his administration would launch a modern mass transport project which would be up and running by the end of that legislature.

Robert Abela meanwhile told XTRA this week that he wants to make a mass transport system for Malta his utmost priority after the upcoming general election, whenever it may be. 

Yet after five years of seemingly no progress on the metro system, and five years where Malta's traffic problems have only gotten worse - despite the PL's last electoral manifesto promising to work to reduce Malta's car dependency culture - is this an area that the PL has credibility in?

This is the question that voters will be asking, potentially while sitting in traffic during rush hour, and it's a point which the PN will no doubt be trying to drive home during the eventual electoral campaign.

Over-population

Population politics has dominated the political discourse over the last few years, as Malta strains over the weight of the increase in population that has enveloped the country since 2013.

The fact is that Malta's population has grown by over a quarter since 2013, and around 30% of it is made up of non-Maltese individuals.

Critics, in particular the PN, have called this increase a bi-product of the Labour Government's economic policies and said that it is the primary reason for many of the infrastructural challenges that the island is currently facing, while the government recently introduced a new Labour Migration Policy to try and bring some control to migration while also introducing tax breaks for parents to encourage more Maltese to have children.

The Malta Independent this week reported that the European Union's statistics body is projecting the country's population to increase by another 20% to 723,710 by 2100 - bucking a European trend where the projection is for the population to drop by 11.7% in the same period.

This is an area which people will certainly be looking at from a policy perspective.  It's clear that there is discontentment within the sentiment of the general public at the consequences that the population increase of the last years has brought.

The question remains though on how the parties will portray themselves as the solution for this issue.

The PN has said that it would place emphasis on new economic niches which bring high-value to the country's economy without needing an increase in population to prop it up - but that's a somewhat vague promise which people may find difficult to relate to.

The PL meanwhile has the tough task of appealing for people's trust on an issue which was created by its own administration. Its solutions thus far are unlikely to be having the desired effect by the time the election rolls around, so it remains to be seen what it may come up with in the run-up to the election to handle this issue.

Affordable housing

Affordable housing will likely be a key topic for the younger demographic of voters - a demographic which may well make up the bulk of the floating voters that the PN and PL will be fighting for.

Property prices have been on the rise year in, year out - and despite whatever international crisis that is thrown at the country's economy, that has not changed.  It is coming to a point where young people are finding it increasingly impossible to find a decent place that they can afford. 

The housing market is flooded with unimaginative, low-quality, pigeon hole apartments that are quite frankly a depressing prospect for any young person or couple to want to live in.

The PL government has tried to various schemes and grants to alleviate this situation, and while there hasn't been a measure among those that can be considered as bad - nothing managed to curb the continual increase in property prices.

It is a situation with no easy solution; one which will require radical thinking that younger voters will certainly be on the lookout for.

The question is, can either the PN or the PL come up with the radical thinking required to solve this challenge?