O lead to 50 years

These are the official turnouts for all the elections since Independence

shown that the PN trails Labour by a big margin.

The party is now facing a crossroads. The decision taken yesterday by the general council will be followed by a convention that is to determine the way forward, but whatever happens will inevitably create deeper wounds. There will be repercussions either way – whether Delia retains his seat as party leader, or has to concede it to a new leader.

The losers of this internal battle will swallow a bitter pill. There is also a possibility of a split, which will only favour the Labour Party. But if, somehow, the PN will trudge on as one bloc in spite of the disharmony, the likelihood is that there will be many traditional PN voters who will not turn up at the polling booth. If Delia is pushed aside, some of his supporters will refrain from voting; if he stays on, the same will happen on the other side.

A split could also mean that people who normally vote PN will abstain. They will never vote Labour, are unhappy with the situation within the PN, and so their decision will be to stay home.

The small parties

The small parties, in spite of their good intentions, have not made any significant headway among the voters.

If anything, they have lost more support since the last election, when the newly set-up Partit Demokratiku had joined forces with the Nationalist Party in what was then known as the Forza Nazzjonali, and ended up with two seats in the House of Representatives. Those seats, occupied by Godfrey Farrugia and Marlene Farrugia, have since been lost as the two have become independent MPs and will not be seeking re-election. Without the Farrugias, the PD is less appealing.

The same goes for Alternattiva Demokratika, which since the last election in 2017 has lost its most prominent member. Arnold Cassola left the party he once led and in the 2019 MEP election ended up obtaining more votes on his own than the two AD representatives put together.

There is now talk of PD and AD merging into one, and although this pooling of resources will help in administrative matters, this will not necessarily translate into votes. It is more likely that a voter who normally votes Labour or PN to abstain completely rather than give a vote to a candidate representing the small parties.