Election History Bites | 60 years of a duopoly

The 1966 election was the first to be held after Malta obtained independence in 1964. But it was also the election that started the 60-year parliamentary duopoly that persists to this very day.

Since 1966 no other political party or independent candidate apart from the Nationalist and Labour parties have managed to get elected on their own steam to parliament.

The 1966 election was contested by three other parties—Christian Workers’ Party, Progressive Constitutionalist Party and Democratic Nationalist Party—none of which elected members of parliament. Eventually, all three parties ceased to exist.

In 2017, the duopoly was dented through a quirky arrangement. The newly-founded Partit Demokratiku (PD) formed a pre-electoral alliance with the Nationalist Party that saw the former’s candidates appearing on the ballot sheet as PN candidates. PD managed to elect two representatives—Marlene Farrugia and Godfrey Farrugia—in this way but the party never featured on the ballot sheet under its own name.

In 2020, PD joined with AD to form ADPD-The Green Party, which unsuccessfully contested the 2022 election.

Over the years there have been several instances of MPs elected on the ticket of the two major parties, who ended the legislature as independent MPs after they were kicked out or resigned from the party. On most occasions they still voted in line with the party they had been elected with.

Notable examples include Wenzu Mintoff, who had been elected to the Opposition benches on the MLP ticket in the 1987 election but in 1989 defected and started representing in parliament the new political party he helped found—Alternattiva Demokratika. Mintoff’s votes in parliament were aligned with AD’s principles. In subsequent elections, AD never managed to elect members of parliament.

Another example was Labour MP Joe Brincat, who in 1995 fell out with then Opposition leader Alfred Sant and resigned from the Labour parliamentary group, staying on as an independent MP until the end of the legislature. Brincat later reconciled with Sant and went on to become PL deputy leader in 1998 after the resignation of George Abela. He was re-elected to the House in 2003 but lost his seat in 2008.

In 2012, PN MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando resigned from the party, effectively denying the Lawrence Gonzi government a majority in parliament. He stayed on as an independent MP in coalition with the PN until the end of the legislature. Pullicino Orlando did not contest the 2013 election and in 2017 was a candidate for the Labour Party but failed to get elected.

In the outgoing legislature, former Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo resigned from the Labour parliamentary group following a police investigation into allegations of wrongdoing involving his wife and the Malta Tourism Authority. Bartolo stayed on as an independent but his positions were completely aligned with those of the Labour government.

Election History Bites powered by Agenda Bookshop is a series of election-inspired stories that will be published from Monday to Friday every morning throughout the election campaign