Election 2026: New records, a steadied ship, renewed momentum, soul-searching
The 2026 general election has come and gone, and now the post-mortem can begin.
The Labour Party emerged as victors for a record-setting fourth consecutive time – but that is not the full story.
The win, with a margin of 21,721 votes, opens a new chapter in Malta’s political scene, as the Nationalist Party signalled that it can eat into the PL’s previously seemingly unassailable lead.
Almost 11,000 people voted for Malta’s smaller parties – a record, albeit still comparatively small, number.
So what can the PL, PN, Momentum, and ADPD take from this election, and how do they go forward from here?
The Labour Party
The talk of an early election never seemed to go away for the Labour Party. So when Prime Minister Robert Abela finally sounded the claxon on 27 April, it didn’t really come as much of a surprise – even though it was almost a year early.
The end result was what the PL ultimately wanted: a historic fourth consecutive electoral victory, another five years in government, and a strong show of support for Abela and the rest of his team.
It is, however, a win which comes with a noticeable dip in support from voters. A margin of victory of 21,721 votes is still a comfortable win – it is the fourth highest margin by votes in Malta’s history… the other three were Labour’s previous three electoral wins – but it is not the same type of win that the party faithful have come to expect.
The margin is practically identical to the PL’s margin of victory in the 2024 local council elections, a result which, together with that of the European Parliament election, had led Abela to say that voters were sending the PL a message.
It will be interesting to see how the PL interprets the message that voters sent this time around. What is certain is that the party would be making a mistake in resting on the laurels of its victory.
In many ways the message is quite simple: voters still think that the PL is the best option, but the support is growing more and more tenuous.
Another interesting aspect is that this election bucked the PL trend somewhat. One of the PL’s key strengths over the years has been its ability to renew itself while still in government. Yet while the PL presented a respectable bunch of new candidates this election, voters did not seem taken by them.
Only two new MPs were elected – Nigel Vella and John Grech – while Anthony Agius Decelis returned to Parliament after missing out last legislature. That number may increase a little bit once all casual elections are done, and will also increase once the gender corrective mechanism works – but it’s clear that the voters’ trust is in the people that they are used to.
Robert Abela’s first Cabinet, in fact, does not include any new faces. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – these MPs are there because they have the backing of voters at the end of the day – but it’s also not the renewal that Abela may have wanted when he spoke two years back.
At the end of the day though, the PL has a new mandate in its hand. The question now will be whether it uses it to bring the changes that people want to see. With a PN on the rise and the inherent disadvantage that comes with being in power for so long, failure to do so could spell trouble in five years’ time.
The Nationalist Party
There will likely be mixed feelings within the walls of Dar Centrali after this weekend.
On the one hand, the PN has once again been consigned to the Opposition benches, meaning that the party now faces the prospect of not having a shot of governing until at least 2031, making that 18 years – a generation – in Opposition.
On the other hand, the party managed to cut the PL’s margin of victory by almost half, despite having gone through yet another leadership contest just nine months ago. Alex Borg led a strong campaign which inspired genuine hope in the PN’s ranks and which successfully convinced many non-voters from the PN to return to the party’s fold.
This is evident from the final voting totals. The PN gained 13,490 votes on its 2022 performance, while the PL lost 4,293 votes when compared to four years ago. This fact coupled with the turnout increasing by two percentage points indicates that while there were some swing voters from the PL to the PN – the increase in turnout benefitted the PN.
The party can also take comfort in the fact that it also out-performed most of the polls for a second election running – something which suggests that there is a silent cohort of voters which is gravitating towards it.
The post-mortem on this election is probably going to be the most important post-mortem that the PN has had to make in the last 20 years.
There are positives: the PN increased its vote share in every district, won back seats in two heavily PL-leaning districts, and won a vote majority (albeit not a seat majority) in Gozo. The party’s gains were strongest in districts which trend towards the PL – but were less pronounced in districts which trend towards the PN.
For instance, the PN only gained 0.1% in the 9th district. That may be down to the district having the PL-leaning locality of Pieta added to it this time around – but it may also be impacted by Arnold Cassola performing very well as well.
The same can be said of the 10th and 11th districts – PN gains here were less, and it also happened to be districts where smaller party candidates – namely Cassola and fellow Momentum candidate Mark Camilleri Gambin – performed well.
It is evident that while there an increased cohort of voters which does not want to vote for the PL, the same cohort still does not feel entirely comfortable backing the PN.
The PL has written history by being elected for a fourth time in a row. Cumulatively, that’s as much a product of the PL’s competence over the years, as it is a product of the PN’s incompetence over the years.
Now, the PN seems to have steadied the ship. The question now will be if it can get the wind behind its sails and put the PL under pressure in the next five years.
Momentum
This was Momentum’s first general election as a party since being born out of the movement that helped Arnold Cassola to a strong European Parliament election showing in 2024.
With a team made up of largely new faces – Cassola was the only candidate who has ever contested a nationwide election before – Momentum approached this election with a people-centric approach, as it hosted ‘Vision Circles’ to get through to the public and compile ideas.
It’s an approach which seems to have worked: Momentum achieved 4,700 first count votes and was the third most popular party, behind the PL and the PN.
The party’s chairperson Arnold Cassola was Momentum’s most popular candidate, as he received 722 first count votes on the 9th district and 795 votes on the 10th district.
But what was especially positive for them was that some of the party’s new candidates did well too: Momentum Secretary General Mark Camilleri Gambin and fellow new candidate Matthew Agius both performed admirably in their districts.
The greater question will now be whether Momentum can keep up their, ahem, momentum.
It would have been unreasonable to expect the party to hold onto the 12,706 first count votes that Cassola racked up during the 2024 European Parliament elections. These elections always have higher tendencies of people ‘experimenting’, as the two major parties like to call it, with their vote than in a general election.
But now the new party has a benchmark to go off of, and it’s not a bad benchmark at all.
ADPD
ADPD come out of this general election smarting.
ADPD candidates achieved 3,996 first count votes, placing the party fourth in the ranking behind Momentum. It is the party’s 3rd best showing in a general election – but it also signifies a drop in support since 2022, where the party won 4,747 votes, despite the fact that a record number of people voted away from the PL-PN duopoly.
Malta’s traditional third party for almost 40 years was, yet again, beaten by a newer and seemingly more organised small party in an election.
Back in 2017, the new Democratic Party achieved 4,846 votes – almost double what AD, as it was then called, achieved. The PD did contest under the PN’s banner in 2017, but AD was again beaten in the 2019 European Parliament elections, when PD won 5,276 votes and AD registered a paltry 1,866 votes.
PD eventually merged with AD to create the ADPD we know today, and achieved 4,747 votes in 2022. But the renewed enthusiasm behind Arnold Cassola – ADPD’s own former leader – has entirely overshadowed the green party in recent years.
Cassola alone achieved 12,706 first count votes in the 2024 European Parliament elections, whereas ADPD achieved just 3,109 votes. The results from last weekend only continue to add to this overshadowing.
There is a clear pattern: the enthusiasm for alternatives to the mainstream parties is building – but that enthusiasm is not being channelled to ADPD.
It’s possible that the formula that ADPD has presented over the last years is seen to be a little bit tired. Talk of a party rebrand after the 2024 elections never materialised into anything beyond just that, and the party’s modus operandi and ballot sheet has remained essentially the same as in past years.
The party’s leader Sandra Gauci initial reaction was to suggest that she will take a break from politics, but later said she would stay on, and one of its committee members and candidates Brian Decelis has also stepped away from the party.
One gets the feeling that there is more soul-searching to come for the party in the next few weeks and months.
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