Labour vote falls by 8,200 but low turnout punishes PN to suffer 12,000 vote loss

Labour’s overall vote fell by 8,269 over the 2017 election as turnout in the 2022 election fell to a historic low of 85.5%, still high by European standards.

But the Opposition Nationalist Party’s vote count fell by 12,463 votes since 2017, suggesting more former PN voters stayed at home, or invalidated their vote.

Labour clinched 55.1% of the popular vote, but with less votes than in 2017 at 162,707 owing to the low turnout. But that shyness at the polls punished the opposition Nationalist Party, who garnered 41.7% of the popular vote, 123,233 votes in total, leaving an unprecedented super-majority of 39,474 votes for Labour.

In 2017 there were over 310,000 valid votes – turnout less invalidated votes – cast, compared to the 295,000 valid votes cast in this election, a difference of just over 15,000 votes.

That means that 45.8% of eligible voters voted for Labour, 4.2 points less than then 2017 election; 34.7% voted PN, 5 points less than 2017: at least 20% of eligible voters chose neither party, double that of 2017.

Additionally, despite a greater voting population, less people voted in this election (6.5 points down from 2017), more people invalidated their vote (at 8,802 double the 4,031 invalid votes of 2017), and twice as many voted for small parties or independents (3.2% compared to 1.3% in 2017).

In this apparent environment of abstentionism, the drop in votes punished a weaker Nationalist Party more than Labour, which managed to turn out the vote on Saturday successfully, limiting the damage it could have suffered.

Robert Abela’s closing appeals to electors were marked by constant reminders that abstaining was not an option for voters. And after a shock midday turnout of 2pm of 40%, Labour rallied its troops, with frantic calls from ministers and even the prime minister himself to get out the Labour vote.

The Nationalist’s losses were apparent in the south, where it lost a second seat in the fifth district (Zurrieq) to Labour to turn it deep red, as well as in the north ‘Nationalist’ 12th district (Mellieha, Naxxar) where it held with a relative majority of just over 49%. But this district has suffered gerrymandering with part of Birguma annexed to the safe Nationalist 10th district (Sliema, St Julian’s).