[ANALYSIS] Midterm elections: Why boredom may be Labour’s only problem

Mid-term elections are usually an occasion for voters to clip the wings of governing parties. Since no government is at stake voters can afford to send a message even by voting for opposition parties they would not trust in government. When in government the PN was soundly defeated twice in MEP elections and was regularly beaten in what used to be annual local elections. The trend was somewhat reversed in 2014 when Labour, still in its honeymoon period saw its 2013 majority confirmed. Polls now indicate that the trend will be defied again despite Labour being in government for 6 years.

For the past months polls have been showing Labour nearing the 60% mark and winning 4 out of the 6 six available.  

Moreover the opposition leader has not only failed to re-unite his party but remains paralyzed by a money laundering investigation which further chips in to his credibility and undermines the party’s stance against corruption.

In fact parties will go in uncharted waters, as this will be the first election in recent history, which sees a party in government facing such a weak opposition.  For although Simon Busuttil came to lose the last election with the same margin as in 2013 and Muscat’s re-election was expected, there was still an element of uncertainty mainly due to the panama fall out which had re-energised the opposition.   At this stage it should be a walkover for Labour.  Yet Labour is still expected to unleash a blitzkrieg to convince its voters to go out and vote. So what factor are keeping Labour on its toes?

1. Lack of motivation

The greatest risk of all this is having the most boring election in recent history in which the sole motivation of Labour voters would be to show appreciation for government  in elections usually used by voters for the very opposite reason. In fact this year’s mid terms are a golden opportunity for those who saw Labour as the lesser evil in the 2013 and 2017 elections to send a message on a variety of issues ranging from over development and good governance to housing problems and immigration.

Usually such voters are normally reined in by fear of the opposite party making inroads.  But polls showing 60% voting for Labour may well dispel any such fear. The question for these voters is how to channel their protest vote. Neither can Labour afford to focus on the quality of its candidates.  For with the exceptions of Alfred Sant and Miriam Dalli, its team is not superior to the PN’s crop of candidates. In fact the  quality of candidates may the strongest asset the PN has while its leadership remains its weakest asset.  Instead Labour may well rely on Labour’s best asset; Joseph Muscat and this can be achieved by turning these elections in to a sort of unofficial appeal for him to stay on as leader, despite his repeated commitments not to lead his party in to the next election. This will serve to give more meaning to voting in an election devoid of excitement.

2. The risk of abstention

One way for disgruntled Labour voters to send a message would be by staying at home. Sure enough Labour’s worries in this aspect as more than compensated by the greater amount of PN voters presently threatening not to vote. So far polls indicate that the PN is losing more to abstention than the PL. Yet the fear could be that some Labour voters may simply not turn out not to vote simply because they see little point in doing so, fully knowing that their vote will change nothing.

The fear is that many of these may reply Labour when asked who they will be voting for in the election but may still not be particularly motivated to vote. Moreover to keep its lead over the PN intact, Labour has to galvanise its soft voters, the floaters who migrated to it in successive waves in elections held between 2008 and 2017. These may still prefer Labour to the Pn in national elections but may feel not sufficiently motivated to vote instead of spending a day at the beach. 

Abstention (or the threat of it) could also be an attractive prospect for the hunting lobby in its bid to win more concessions in the run up to these elections.

3. A menu of small parties

MEP and local elections should be the best opportunity for small parties to leave their mark.  With no government at stake, voters in these elections are free to experiment with their vote. Small parties have so far not made their mark on these elections and the few votes they get generally come from the PN rather than from the PL. Moreover the third party vote is more fragmented than ever with AD, the PD and independent candidate Arnold Cassola competing for the centre-left vote and the Patrijotti and Norman Lowell competing for the far right vote.  Yet in a boring election, there is always a greater temptation to improvise and individual candidatures may gain traction in the last few weeks of the campaign as they manage to attract the attention of voters. The impact on Labour depends on how far smaller parties will target its voters. 

While the PD may pose greater problems for the PN as it is distrusted by PL voters for its recent coalition with the PN, the greens may even attract some PL voters especially in local elections where voters across the spectrum may reward them for their firm stance against over development. Norman Lowell, though a scary prospect considering his openly racist ideology, may also represent an unknown quantity due to the tendency of some voters to perceive a vote for him as a mixture of a joke and a protest vote rather than a sign of long-term allegiance. The end result may well be that while individually third parties will not achieve great results in MEP elections, collectively they may chip in to the vote of larger parties as they generate some interest in what are promising to be very bland elections.  At local level they may even be more successful in terms of elected candidates.