Labour gets bigger in Gozo

Labour has increased its share of the vote in Gozo by 0.4% over the last general elections in 2013, and by 1.4% over the 2009 MEP elections. This is a clear indication that Labour has consolidated its gains in the sister island where the party won a majority of seats in last year’s general election, despite failing to win a majority of votes.

In this election, the PL wins a larger relative majority than that achieved in 2009. While in 2009, Labour’s share of the vote in Gozo amounted to 48%, it now amounts to 49.4%. In 2013 Labour’s share amounted to 49.1% against the PN’s 50%.

On the other hand, the PN sees its voting share decline by five points over last year and by 2 points over 2009. 

Gozo was the only locality to register an increase in turnout compared to 2009. But while this increase in turnout yielded 1,054 extra votes for the PL, the PN only increased its support by 322.

In Gozo, Labour also retains more of its general votes than the PN. While the PN loses 2,900 votes, the PL loses 1,809 votes. Both parties lost votes because of the decrease in turnout.

This means that while the PL has lost 15% of its 2013 voters, the PN has lost 23% of its 2013 voters. Gozo is also the district where the PL lost least votes, just 15% compared to 23% in the eight and ninth districts where Labour lost most votes.

Moreover compared to similar elections in 2009, the PL increased its voters by 11% while the PN increased its voters by less than 4%.

Labour holds in the south

The survey also shows that the decision to locate the LNG tanker in Marsaxlokk harbour has had little impact on the electorate.

In fact, in the fifth district of Marsaxlokk and Birzebbugia, the PN lost 2.1 points while Labour lost 1.7 points over the 2013 general election figures. Both AD and Imperium Europa register an increase in support in a district where both immigration and the environment are primary concerns.

Compared to the general election the PL lost 3,176 voters (20% of its total in 2013) while the PN lost 1,917 voters (25% of its total in 2013).

The only positive news for the PN is that compared to 2009, it gains 248 votes in this southern district. On the other hand, the PL gained only 39 votes. This suggests that the power station issue simply served to mobilise a greater share of PN voters than in 2009.

But despite a small increase in turnout among PN voters, it is small parties which gain most from the PL’s 2-point drop from 2009 levels.

Labour seems to have faced greater disgruntlement in the second district, which includes Cottonera. Compared to 2009, the Labour Party has seen its vote tally in the second district decrease by 711 votes compared to an 18-vote decrease for the PN.  Labour also saw a decrease of 630 voters in the third district.

The second district was the only one where the PN minimally increased its vote share over 2009 figures. But in the neighbouring third district this time around, the PN loses 633 votes from its 2009 tally.

In a clear indication that the PN still lags behind in the southern districts, the first seven southern districts show that the PN has lost a greater share of its 2013 voters than the PL. This suggests that the PN still faces difficulties in these southern localities despite its attempt to exploit disgruntlement related to the new LNG tanker and other environmental problems in the area.

Stalemate in the north

On the other hand, in the eighth, ninth and tenth and eleventh districts, both parties lost roughly the same percentage of 2013 voters and both registered losses to third parties.

Compared to 2009, the eleventh district has seen the sharpest increase of Nationalist voters (680). In this district, Labour voters also increased by 370.

This was one of the few districts where compared to 2009, the PL lost more support than the PN. But even here, the PN fails to make any inroads due to strong presence of AD, which peaks at 4.4% in this district.

In the twelfth district the PN scraped through with a razor-thin majority, as was already the case in 2009.

In the tenth district the PN saw a decrease of 152 voters since 2009, while Labour has seen a drop of 340 voters. This suggests that in this PN-leaning district this time around, more PL voters stayed at home than PN voters. Both parties lose an equal number of votes when compared to 2013 figures. The result of this district shows both parties losing a few points to Norman Lowell’s Imperium Europa.

Clash of the minnows

Imperium Europa leads AD in all six southern districts except in the fourth district where the two parties score an equal percentage.

But AD gets more support than IE in all districts between the seventh and the thirteenth.

Compared to the general election, AD increased its vote tally in all districts except the tenth district – which includes Sliema and St Julian’s, where it has also held local council seats in the past.

Surprisingly in the tenth district, AD sees its votes decline from 741 in the 2013 general election to 736 votes now. Due to the drop in turnout, AD still managed to increase its share of the vote in this district by 0.7%. 

But this district defies the general trend which shows smaller parties faring better in the European elections than in general elections. Despite this drop, the AD vote in the tenth district in these elections is still higher than it was in 2009 when only 665 had voted AD. While in 2009 AD registered its highest support in the tenth district (3.9%), in this election it registers its highest support in the eleventh district (4.4%).

But it was on the fourth and fifth districts that AD managed to register the most substantial increase in votes. In the fourth district the AD vote increased by 273 since last year’s general election, and by 207 since the 2009 MEP election.

In the fifth district, the AD vote increases by 245 since last year’s general election and by 241 since 2009.

Compared to 2009, AD’s vote has increased by 76% in the fifth district, which includes Birzebbugia and Marsaxlokk. 

The results show that in these elections, AD has registered a significant increase of votes in the southern districts but still gets its best results in the relatively more affluent ninth (Swieqi, San Gwann, Msida) and eleventh districts (Attard, Balzan, Mosta) where it gets 4.4% of the vote. AD also surpasses the 4.1% mark on the tenth district, where it got most votes in the past general election.

AD still gets it worse results in the first district, which includes Valletta, the sixth district, which includes Qormi, and in Gozo (13th). In Gozo the party registers its only small decline over the 2009 MEP elections.

IE gets its best result in the St Paul’s Bay district (12th) where it gets 3.5% – just 0.2 points less than AD. In this locality the number of IE voters has increased by 325.

IE gets more than 3% in the southern fifth district and the central ninth district. The extreme right gets its worse result in Gozo where it gets only 1.7%. With AD and IE both relatively weak, Nazzareno Bonnici of Tal-Ajkla registers his best success, winning more than 1% of the vote.

The elections indicate that although on opposite ideological poles, both AD and IE enjoy higher support in the north of Malta. In the twelfth district, both parties surpass the 3% mark.

But while IE surpasses AD in the southern districts, AD attracts substantially more support in the northern district.

Ultimately AD got 631 votes more than Lowell’s party thanks to its stronger results in the 9th, 10th and 11th districts.