The end of the supermajority era

Roberta Metsola described 2024 as the “biggest global election year in history”. She was referring to several important elections including those held in France, the UK, the US and India, and Europe-wide elections to elect representatives in the European Parliament.

Indeed, 2024 was a year of reckoning in many of the countries where elections were held with far-right politicians gaining significant footholds in parliaments and governments.

In Malta, the European election represented a seminal moment since the result shattered the aura of invincibility that surrounded the Labour Party.

The PL still emerged from the election as the largest party but saw its 40,000-vote lead over the Nationalist Party cut down to 8,000 votes. The Labour juggernaut that had been steaming ahead and collecting supermajorities along the may was finally dented.

Subsequent surveys carried out by MaltaToday after the summer months showed the PN edging in front for the first time in many years even though the difference between the parties was solidly within the margin of error.

This was a year in which the PL was cut down to size. Indeed, 2024 marked the end of Labour’s supermajority era, allowing the PN to start believing again in the possibility of electoral victory.

Just 12 months ago very few people believed we would ever be using defeatist terminology when talking about the PL let alone entertaining the possibility of seeing the PN in government.

Whether the PL maintains its downward trend in 2025 still has to be seen but a day is a long time in politics. The tide may yet turn but the prognosis so far suggests otherwise with the Prime Minister increasingly taking to knee-jerk reactions when faced with scandals and uncomfortable situations.

Nonetheless, 2024 was a stark reminder that the electorate can never be taken for granted. Faced by punishing inflation, several illogical political U-turns and a string of corruption allegations that started to hurt people in real-time, the electorate felt it was time for the government to be given a stiff warning last June. Labour voters appear to have moved to the parking lot, where they are more likely to listen to other voices.

But more importantly, the EP election outcome showed that the moment a political party believes it is invincible is the moment it starts to lose the plot. The downfall may not be immediate but it becomes a gradual decline that can be difficult to arrest.

This is a lesson all politicians need to learn going forward into the new year.

Your right to know

We took the bold decision to publish the Vitals inquiry in its entirety last May because readers had a right to know what it contained.

We felt that it was unfair on voters to be asked by politicians to use their vote as a means to pass judgement on the inquiry when they were not privy to its findings. However, we also sought legal advice to ensure that publication of the inquiry would not prejudice ongoing court proceedings against the several individuals and companies charged with various crimes.

The final decision was to publish the full inquiry with no redactions so that people couId read through it and reach their own conclusions. It was a decision we took in the public interest, on a matter of significant public controversy.

We believe people should be able to make informed judgements on issues that are affecting them. It was absurd that just two weeks before the June election, people were clueless about the findings of a major inquiry that rocked the political establishment. It was our duty to ensure people had all the information at hand to make an informed choice, rather than wait for politicians to filter out the inconvenient truths.

This is a choice we will continue making because we believe the people’s right to know should trump immature partisan considerations.