‘A little, from the many,’ they say but do you believe them?

The two major political parties collectively collected more than €1.8 million during separate fundraising marathons held last weekend.

The Labour Party collected €1.1 million, during a 12-hour marathon, marking its second fundraising marathon of 2025 and the highest amount ever raised during a December edition.

On the other hand, the Nationalist Party raised €730,384 on Sunday, which adds on to the €508,225 collected in October, the first fundraiser on Alex Borg’s watch.

The air of triumphalism was evident on the faces of Labour and Nationalist party officials, who were hoping for the bonanza.

But beyond the glitz, the glamour and the political rhetoric there is no way for us to know whether some or most of those hundreds of thousands of euros came from dubious sources or had invisible strings attached to them. Party officials will obviously deny any of this conjecture. They will insist the money came from small donations made by a lot of people—‘il-ftit mingħand il-ħafna,’ they will say.

And while there is truth to this statement—people are indeed generous with the two major political parties—there is no way for us to verify whether this is the case.

For that matter, neither does the Electoral Commission have the power to probe donations that arouse suspicion despite a law regulating political party financing.

And why? A Constitutional Court ruling from 2018 said the commission cannot act as investigator, judge and jury on political party financing. This ruling effectively paralysed the commission, which is also the reason why the PN’s failure to publish its accounts for four years went unpunished. All the commission could do was send the PN a yearly reminder of its legal obligation to submit its accounts and donation reports.

The situation is ridiculous. On paper we have a law on political party financing that identifies the Electoral Commission as a watchdog but in practice the commission is as toothless as a new born baby. A commission that cannot bite—through no fault of its own—renders the law on political party financing worthless.

But what is more shocking is the fact that seven years after the court ruling, the law has not been amended to address the human rights concerns raised by the Constitutional Court. It is convenient for both sides of the House to leave the situation as is, while occasionally expressing manufactured concern whenever the matter drifts onto the national agenda.

Lawyer Franco Debono, one of the architects of the existing law and a long-time promoter of proper regulation of political party financing, commented about the ridiculousness of the situation in the aftermath of the fund-raising marathons. He accused the two main parties of brazenly leaving the law in a state of “paralysis”.

He asked: “How do we know if there were donations made in breach of the law if it remains paralysed?”

Debono expressed his indignation at MPs’ reluctance to amend the law. “The best thing is that we have the biggest parliament per capita in the world and everyone is posing and warming their seat.”

Debono is right. The inertia on this matter, eight years after the court ruling, is frustrating.

What are our MPs doing to push forward legal amendments to unblock the impasse created by the Constitutional Court ruling? The answer is simple: ‘Nothing’. Not a single MP has had the temerity to push forward a private member’s bill proposing amendments to the Financing of Political Parties Act (Chapter 544).

On paper, Malta appears to be a normal country with a law that regulates how political parties are financed, with a mechanism to enforce compliance and penalties for those who are in breach. In reality, the political parties can act with impunity and get away with murder because there is no one to probe their affairs.

There is something cynically sinister about this reluctance to amend the law. If this country wants to get serious about fighting corruption and curbing the influence of big business on political parties the law regulating political party financing is where we should start.

Unfortunately, nine years after coming into force we are not discussing additional ways and means to strengthen the law—we are still stuck at a stage where we need to fix what the court said is broken.

Meanwhile, the PL and PN continue to rake in millions of euros. “A little, from the many,” they say… that is if you believe them.