Supermajority or narrowed gap? The stakes for Grech and Abela

Nobody doubts that Labour is cruising to another comfortable victory in the June MEP election in terms of votes obtained. 

Bar any cataclysmic scenario, the only question left answered is by how much votes the Labour Party will win. So far, polls indicate that the PL enjoys an unassailable and comfortable lead over its main rival, the Nationalist Party. 

But the party may fall short of the super majority it has won in every electoral appointment since 2009 when the party under Joseph Muscat won its first super majority in the MEP election. 

The scale of Labour’s victory could also have a psychological effect which could shape and condition Robert Abela’s leadership in the next three years, but it could also determine the future of Bernard Grech’s leadership, especially if Labour defies all odds by winning an unlikely fourth seat. 

Bernard Grech’s future (not Abela’s) is in the balance 

Bernard Grech has put his job on the line by committing himself to ask for a vote of confidence in the party’s general council if the PN fails to win its third seat. 

In many ways this was a safe bet. After all Labour had missed this target even in 2014 when it won by over 33,677 votes in a nail biter which saw Therese Comodini Cachia snatch the PN’s third seat by chance. Five years ago, the PL won a fourth seat on the back of a super majority of 42,656. 

But any failure by the PN to reach this modest target may well throw the Opposition party in disarray, especially if Roberta Metsola turns down the call of the party’s grass roots to come back to lead the party. 

Such a result may not even be the desired outcome for Labour which could be satisfied by a strong majority which is just enough to demoralise the PN while keeping Grech in his place as a lame duck until the next general election. 

The fear of losing the super majority 

One of Labour’ greatest strengths over the past decade has been its psychological mind frame not to take its super majorities for granted. The party has remained constantly in electoral mode and has even been ready to backtrack at the first signs of popular dissatisfaction. Still, one cannot help noticing that since 2022 Abela’s u-turns have become even more abrupt as it became increasingly difficult for him to keep traditional Labourites, progressive voters, switchers and Muscat loyalists in the same tent. 

However, if past campaigns are anything to go by, one can be misled in believing that Labour is fighting for its survival when in truth it is simply doing everything in its power to win superlatively. In this sense Labour’s sense of urgency in this campaign is more dictated by a fear of seeing its super majority eroded than by any realistic fear of a PN revival. 

But this time around, Labour may be a victim of its past successes, with Abela desperately having to match results which defy the laws of attrition. The question is whether a reduced majority will condition the next three years of Labour government and how. Again, much depends on the scale of Labour’s victory but the result itself may be deceptive. 

Labour may well win big over the PN by a gap of 20,000 or more votes without even winning an absolute majority and this thanks to abstention in a demoralised PN camp or losses to third parties. In this eventuality Labour may well win big by default in a context where it no longer commands an absolute majority in the country. 

If Labour manages to win an absolute majority and retain a sizeable gap in the range of between 15,000 and 30,000 votes, the damage will be contained. And the closer the party gets to the 30K mark, the more negligible the damage will be. But if Labour loses its absolute majority and sees its lead cut below the 15,000-vote mark, the myth of Labour’s invincibility will start to crack. How will this impact the country? 

With three years to go before the next general election, Abela will have a harder time reconciling the contradictions in his broad coalition of voters, which is bound to be tested by the criminal prosecution of Joseph Muscat, and by urgent decisions needed to address pressing issues like traffic, inflation and land use.    

And while a setback may well serve as a wake-up call for Labour to listen to the people on their concerns, it may well make the government more inward looking and preoccupied with appeasing supporters through favours and patronage. Moreover, the Opposition may well gain traction the moment people start considering that a Labour government is not an inevitable outcome.  This may well attract much needed resources and talent to the PN.   But paradoxically such a result may reinforce Grech’s tried and tested leadership giving Labour the opportunity of a re-run of the 2022 election in 2027. 

The fundamental difference between MEP elections and general elections being that while this time round the people have an opportunity to punish Labour in the full knowledge that it will remain in government the next day. For a change of government to happen voters will have to be convinced that Bernard Grech makes a better prime minister.  

The future of third-party politics 

MEP elections also offer people the opportunity to vote third party candidates and independents without giving up their say on who governs the country, which is the greatest impediment for people to vote for third parties in general elections. 

While the prospect of a third-party candidate or independent getting elected remains dim, polls are showing that nearly a tenth of the electorate are considering voting for such a candidate. If this phenomenon is confirmed it will expose the sheer impossibility of containing all political opinions and conflicting aspirations in two big tents which are simmering in contradictions. 

Yet success in MEP elections is historically ephemeral. For example, AD failed to capitalise on Arnold Cassola’s near miss in the 2004 MEP election. And even while the far right Imperium Europa emerged as Malta’s third largest party with 8,238 votes in 2019, it was ADPD which reclaimed its place as Malta’s third party in the subsequent general election, garnering 4,747 votes. Still, any success by an unapologetically racialist, dangerous and bizarre outfit like IE should send shivers down the spine of the political class, which over the years has used immigration as political football while failing to substantially address issues like the integration of migrants in Maltese communities. The risk of this may well be a race to the bottom as the major parties struggle to contain the drift to the hard right.