Towards a dominant-party system

Labour’s unprecedented fourth successive electoral victory will go down in Malta’s political history as an enviable feat and milestone.

So how is it that Labour has become the most successful and dominant political party in Malta?

It has proved itself effective at projecting governing and economic competence, requiring a credible leader, managing events and crises well, maintaining continued party unity, and administering the economy successfully to ensure prosperity.

It was effective at building ‘voter coalitions’, achieving this by winning over marginal constituencies that have particular strategic leverage and by extending the party’s appeal beyond its core voter base. It has built voter coalitions of well-off middle-class voters in most districts, while making gains in ‘red wall’ Labour districts. A majority of the middle and upper classes, together with working-class voters, continue to support Labour, and this has remained relatively constant since 2013.

Labour has a recent history of adapting to locate itself on the centre ground of Maltese politics, where a majority of swing voters are located.

In contrast, the PN’s recent history showed it in disarray, removing leaders that were no longer popular and risking the party losing elections, which it did.

The PN came to realise all that late in the day but was never a match for Labour in the run-up to the last election.

Labour now seems to have gradually created a dominant-party system, one that is competitive in the sense that a number of parties compete for power in regular and popular elections but is dominated by a single major party with a prolonged period in power. One still has to determine, however, how ‘prolonged’ a governing period must be for a party to be considered ‘dominant’.

Japan is usually cited as the classic example of a dominant-party system. Until its defeat in 2009, the Liberal Democratic Party had been in power almost continuously for 54 years.

The Congress Party in India enjoyed an unbroken spell of 30 years in power commencing with the achievement of independence in 1947.

The best European examples of a dominant-party system are Sweden, where the Social Democratic Labour Party held power for 65 of the previous 74 years until its defeat in 2006, and Italy, where the Christian Democratic Party dominated every one of the country’s 52 post-World War II governments until the party’s effective collapse amidst mounting allegations of corruption in 1992–94.

Coming back to Labour’s fourth victory, it cannot be denied that the leader, party policies and the election campaign impacted its success. Robert Abela represented the party, and many voters viewed him as the image of the party. Public opinion of him and Labour’s ability to offer an appealing brand to the electorate played an important role in creating support for the party.

Robert Abela and his Movement were popular beyond traditional Labour voters. In all probability, a majority of voters already knew who they were going to choose before the election campaign, so the campaign itself may have hardly changed minds.

How Labour was portrayed in the media, the impact of external events, and how Robert Abela and Foreign Minister Ian Borg responded to them affected how well Labour did.

Historically, Labour was the party of the working class, but voting has moved away from being related to class. Classes have changed in size and become less important.

With Labour’s hold on government since 2013, the structure of the Maltese economy has changed, and it could be argued that opportunities are different and less class-related, while educational opportunities have increased. Neither can it be denied that younger voters tend to lean more left and support Labour.

At this rate, it will take a long time to see the PN and the traditional two-party system’s revival.

In light of the above, before the last election, ADPD and Arnold Cassola’s Momentum were meant to be the deus ex machina to that system.

Arnold Cassola had announced that he was forming a new political party to provide an alternative to the two-party system dominated by Labour and the PN, hoping to attract a good chunk of centrist voters.

While third parties have existed in Maltese politics, they have rarely tipped the electoral scales. The biggest factor for such a situation is probably our electoral system. Since only one party can win, the two closest to winning are the only ones that matter. Even if a voter really likes a third party, they probably also have a preference between the top two. Voting for their favourite party has little impact, but voting for one of the top two may matter. Meanwhile, politicians who want to get elected know that they have a better chance of winning with one of those two parties.

Yet, unless the two-party system is revived, a dominant-party (i.e., Labour) system is destined to be firmly rooted in our politics.

Few are prepared to come to the defence of the dominant-party system. Apart from a tendency towards stability and predictability, dominant partyism is usually seen as a regrettable and unhealthy phenomenon. In the first place, it tends to erode the important constitutional distinction between the state and the party in power.

When governments cease to come and go, an insidious process of politicisation takes place through which state officials and institutions adjust to the ideological and political priorities of the dominant party. Second, an extended period in power can engender complacency, arrogance and even corruption in the dominant party.