Will independent candidates shape the MEP elections?
People are losing faith in mainstream parties, but Malta’s duopoly isn’t disappearing yet, political experts say
Next month’s MEP elections will see more independent candidates than ever face off in the race for one of Malta’s six MEP seats.
A total of 13 independent candidates will be in the mix, together with another eight candidates from Malta’s smaller political parties. This is the first time in the history of Malta’s MEP elections that fewer than half the candidates on the ballot sheet will be from either of Malta’s two main parties.
Previous elections looked starkly different. While smaller parties were always strongly represented on the ballot sheet, with 12 candidates from small parties in both 2019 and 2009, independent candidates were more reluctant to throw their hat into the ring.
Only five independent candidates were on the ballot sheet last time around, together with two parties that fielded only one candidate.
Why has the tide changed so drastically this time around? Times of Malta spoke to leading figures from across the political spectrum to get their views.
PEoPlE losing faith in PartiEs
The rise in independent candidates fundamentally reflects the growing inability of Malta’s two main political parties to engage with voters, they all say.
Independent MEP candidate Arnold Cassola is blunt in his assessment. “There is an ever-increasing dissatisfaction with the two parties, who have occupied everything in this country. And a number of people are no longer ready to accept this arrogance,” he says.
Former PN MEP Therese Comodini Cachia says she meets a “growing group of people who are no longer excited by policies and projects proposed by the main political parties”. More and more people “do not trust that the parties share their vision” and no longer feel that they reflect their “lifestyle and wishes for their future”, she says.
Comodini Cachia warns that this group of people are those “least understood by political parties”.
“There is a discordant view of what political leadership is, what politics is there for, and what the expectations of politicians are.”
Former Labour minister Evarist Bartolo agrees. “An increasing number of people, both candidates and voters, cannot identify with the two main parties anymore,” he says, adding that there are also broader social issues at play.
As society becomes more diverse, he argues, the parties “are becoming less of a broad church able to contain and articulate this fragmented diversity”.
Former Alternattiva Demokratika leader (and PN MEP candidate) Michael Briguglio holds a similar view. Aside from the growing disillusionment in established parties (“both large and even small parties,” he says), “there is now more fragmentation in politics and even within civil society and the media”, with this increased pluralism being reflected in the choice of candidates, he argues.
Briguglio says there could also be more micro factors at play, such as “people’s personalities, egos, some candidates who want to get a point across regardless of whether they get elected or not, and so forth”.
Bartolo warns that a similar shift away from mainstream parties is happening across Europe, where “larger sections of the working population across the EU feel let down and betrayed by mainstream parties”.
“People are no longer confident that their children will be better off than their parents,” he says, pointing to how wages in the eurozone have only increased by an average of 0.5 per cent a year over the past 23 years (“next to nothing,” he says).
Comodini Cachia also argues that there may be another cohort of disgruntled voters who, rather than simply no longer identifying with mainstream parties, actively want to “pass on a message because they are unhappy about one thing or another”.
“Perhaps this is the cohort of voters that independent MEP candidates are going after,” she says.
is Malta’s Political duoPoly in its final strEtch?
But will the rise in independent candidates sound the death knell for Malta’s long-standing political duopoly?
Briguglio is sceptical, pointing to the results of several pre-election polls in recent weeks, all showing that the dominance of the two main parties isn’t likely to end any time soon.
“PL’s results show that it is still in control and, while we hear a lot about a crisis in PN, it still represents a large mass of Malta’s population. Even in most cases where independent candidates performed well, in reality they were nowhere close to being elected.”
Ultimately, Briguglio argues, the two main parties have roots and networks that are deeply ingrained in Maltese society and are difficult for independent candidates or groups to break through.
“Politics is more than the NGOs who make headlines. Much of politics is made of less eye-catching things like door-todoor visits, band club meetings, community organisation. You may find more ideological purity in smaller groups and independent candidates compared to large parties, but people don’t necessarily vote for that.”
Malta’s electoral system complicates matters further, Briguglio says, with party candidates often getting a leg up through votes inherited from other candidates from their own party, to the detriment of independent candidates.
Bartolo agrees that while independent candidates may “nibble away” at the share of votes that the two main parties will receive, “all indications are that they will not change the general political landscape”.
Which Political grouPing Would indEPEndEnt candidatEs EvEn join?
Comodini Cachia argues that unlike local council elections, where standing as an independent candidate is a fairly straightforward matter of working for the good of the locality, rather than your party, an independent MEP candidate begs the more complex question of which political grouping they plan to join.
“I would be hesitant to vote for an MEP candidate who chooses to remain unattached or who does not say which party they will join at the EP. I would not be able to understand what political values that candidate adheres to and also how effective he or she will be in the European Parliament.”
Main PartiEs struggling to find candidatEs
The numbers show that both PL and PN have fielded fewer candidates of their own than any point since 2004. Is this a deliberate strategy or are they struggling to find suitable candidates?
“Definitely,” Cassola insists, arguing that “favouritism among different candidates within the same party as well as strong internal struggles between said candidates do tend to put new candidates off”.
Bartolo believes that the same disenchantment with European politics that has struck voters is also being felt when it comes to finding candidates.
“I wonder whether we have become more parochial since we joined the EU. Perhaps we have resigned ourselves to having EU institutions decide for us,” he says.
Coupled with this disillusionment, Briguglio says, is the fact that there are now more opportunities outside of politics than ever before. “It’s not easy to stand for election, you have to sacrifice a lot, even on a personal level,” he says.
Parties’ struggle to find candidates is “not new”, Comodini Cachia says, but “parties need to clean up their act if they want to attract suitable candidates”.