Crunching numbers and weighing options

Last June, just before the European parliamentary elections, Labour insiders were confident that their party would have a comfortable majority of over 30,000 votes.  Any suggestion within the party this was beyond reach, was belittled and rubbished. 

In fact, many PL exponents would privately denigrate any survey that swayed away from their perceived ‘victory’ number. This would be followed by the traditional abuse on social media - accusations against pollsters of being in league with a political master or a lobby. 

The truth is that pollsters giving their services to reputable media outlets are decent people who do not cook up numbers. They might have different interpretations of the origin of their numbers but in general they arrive at their numbers with established scientific methods. 

Surveys, like all other things in life, can also get it wrong. But whether we like it or not the maths gives us an indication and over time points to electoral trends. Any politician worth their salt should take a hard look at the numbers and patterns. 

There are many unknowns, and, in all polls, those unknowns are interpreted using scientific formulas that contribute to the results. However, the final reality check is the election result. 

A fine example of this is the election in June of last year. 

Back then, three newspapers presented their electoral polls a few days before the EP parliamentary election. 

MaltaToday published its results showing the PL winning with 24,000 votes, It-Torca (Vincent Marmara) polled at 27,500 votes for Labour and The Sunday Times polled with 30,500 votes for Labour. 

Days later the election result came as a surprise to the pollsters and the political parties alike, showing Labour winning the election with 8,454 votes. 

The Nationalist Party was over the moon; Labour shell shocked. Labour’s administration was made to fall on its sword. But after the initial shock subsided the rebound was more arrogance and stubbornness. 

MaltaToday’s latest poll published today is saying that Labour is leading by 12,000 votes. Vincent Marmara, last week released his results showing Labour ahead by 15,000 votes. If an election were held today only God knows what the result would be. The truth is that nearly 25% are saying they will not vote and many of them voted Labour in 2022. Many of these will eventually vote but will they choose Abela and his brand of Labour? 

My hunch is that we could be in for some surprises. 

The latest MaltaToday poll shows that 21,000 voters are also choosing the smaller parties. They are predominantly Nationalist voters. If history repeats itself, they will return to the Nationalist Party because they will be badgered to do so on the premise that their vote will be wasted.   

Small parties are burdened by the high quota required to elect a deputy in an electoral district. 

It very much depends on how effective Arnold Cassola of Momentum and Bernard Grech as leader of the PN are in convincing people either way. 

Labour on the other hand has one important trump card. It is called the economy.  But not all democracies with explosive economies return the ruling party back to power. And the Labour Party’s recent history has all the ingredients for that to really happen. There have been too many scandals and abuse of power not to dent Labour’s supremacy. 

With Labour losing its supermajority it needs to find a new mission; a challenge that will energise the public into seeing Labour the all-time winner. The ill-timed magisterial inquiry reform is not my idea of such a mission. Indeed, it does not help the image of Labour because it bogs it down in a messy debate about limiting people’s right to call for an inquiry; hardly a theme for a social democratic party. 

But such a theme is to a certain extent also not helpful to the PN.  Because every time the civil society group Repubblika and their maverick lawyer Jason Azzopardi are out there taking all the limelight, the pale red, middle-of-the-road voter gets uneasy about giving the PN their support. To them, Robert Aquilina and Jason Azzopardi conjure images of the inquisition and sends shivers down their spine. 

And history has taught us that the PN has only won elections when pale red voters decide to cross the border. 

For those who have the time to look through the numbers and compare them to the real results, MaltaToday has a wonderful archive going back two decades showing the pattern and trends.   

History has a tendency to repeat itself over and over again!