Labour will get fourth seat, but PN will have ‘strong base’ for general election, MP says

Independent MP Hermann Schiavone has interpreted the findings of two opinion surveys published today as inidicating that the Nationalist Party will  definitely lose one of its three seats at the European Parliament.

Schiavone resigned from the PN parliamentary group last month but has remained loyal to the PN, declaring in parliament that his seat belonged to the Nationalist voters that had elected him. 

Survey’s published by MaltaToday and it-Torca on Sunday put the Labour Party ahead of the Nationalist Party by 15 and 16 points respectively, with three weeks to go before the elections.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has repeatedly told Labour Party supporters over the last months that the party with start the election at “0-0” and that people should ignore survey results showing the gap between the two parties increasing, insisting it would be very difficult for Labour to clinch its fourth seat. 

But according to Schiavone, the numbers quoted by the two survey meant that Labour would “almost certainly” win its fourth seat.

“It is almost certain that, with these percentages, the Labour Party will elect four seats with the PN having two. Despite this, Adrian Delia will have a strong base to build on for the general election,” Schiavone said in a Facebook post on Sunday.

He noted however, that while he “did not doubt the percentage”, one needed to await the election turnout to be able to predict a vote margin.

The results, he said, had not changed since the start of both parties’ campaigns, except for a drop in the number of people who had not expressed their support for either party. Out of this segment, he said it appeared as though the PN was gaining more than the PL.

Schiavone also said that as far as candidates were concerned, he was seeing a scenario where “candidates who would have garnered thousands of votes more than others will likely not inherit many votes because they are at the end of the list”. 

According to the MaltaToday’s survey, the Labour Party enjoys the support of 44.1% of respondents, an two-point increase over last month’s result. On the other hand, the PN can count on 29% of respondents, a four-point increase over last month.

The results also showed the number of people claiming an intention not to vote to have fallen from 13.8% to 9.8%, with Normal Lowell registering in the polls for the first time.

Meanwhile, sister paper Illum has quoted sources close to PN leader Adrian Delia who said that the party was expecting a loss of 40,000 to 50,000 votes.