Robert Abela is now Labour’s greatest asset: reading the MaltaToday Survey

The best hope for a party to catch up in the polls is to win over voters who are presently undecided or intent on not voting. And on a national level, with one in every five belonging to that category, the PN can still narrow the gap if it wins over a substantial chunk of these voters.

But in this sense the indications coming from MaltaToday’s latest survey are negative for the PN.

For within those demographic groups with the highest percentage of non-committed voters it is Labour, and not the PN, which is best poised to make further gains.

The groups with the highest percentage of such voters include those younger than 50, post-secondary educated voters, and those living in the urbanised north harbour and western regions. In all these strategic cohorts, it is Prime Minister Robert Abela who is stronger than his party by a considerable margin. For example, while among 18-to-34 year-olds the PL leads the PN by just 4 points within the same group of young voters Abela leads by a staggering 19 points.

And while the survey shows the PN leading in four demographic cohorts namely residents of the north, north harbour and western regions and among those with a tertiary education, Abela is only slightly beaten by Grech in the northern region. In the north harbour region, which contains major urban centres like Qormi, Birkirkara and Sliema where the PN leads by 4 points, Abela still leads by 7 points.

The situation is even more pronounced in the western districts where the PN leads by less than a percentage point, while Abela’s trust rating leads by 11 points. Even among voters with a university degree, while the PN leads by 9 points, Abela leads by 4 points. This is particularly significant as the tertiary-educated cohort was one where Grech was leading over Abela in a number of past surveys.

Reversed trajectories

The main reason for this is that while Abela is 7 points more popular than his own party, PN leader Bernard Grech is 2 points less popular than his party. This represents an enormous handicap in the PN’s recovery strategy. One essential peg for any recovery plan is the stage where voters start warming up to the party leader before deciding to vote for the party he represents.

Following this trajectory, Grech would have first reunited his base as he did in the first surveys after his election as PN leader, than would have experienced a surge of popularity among voters still reluctant to vote PN, before convincing these voters that they can also trust the party he leads.

Surely the situation would have been far worse had Adrian Delia remained leader, as the party would not even have managed to complete the first stage of this trajectory, that of reuniting the PN’s base.

But it is now clear that Grech has lost steam after some progress in his initial months.

And while the PN’s recovery is stalled, the opposite process seems to be happening on the other side. It is Abela who not only keeps his voting base united but who makes inroads in those demographic groups where his party is less popular.

Many would be tempted to blame the ineptitude of the PN and its leaders. But this is only part of the answer. The major reason has to do with Abela himself... he has found a way to balance his appeal with both Labour’s core vote, while retaining his appeal among PN leaning voters

One key demographic is that composed of respondents who voted PN in 2017. This is the same demographic which supported Simon Busuttil’s anti-corruption platform. Within this category while 5.7% would now vote PL, 11% trust Abela more than they trust Grech.

Surely not all those who prefer Abela to Grech will vote PL. In fact nearly 4% of present PN voters still prefer Abela to Grech. But this is further bad news for the PN as it suggests that it cannot even take its present voters for granted. Even among the most sceptical category of voters – those who did not vote in 2017 – Abela is leading Grech by 20 points even if the parties enjoy the same level of support.

This begs the question: how is it possible for Abela to retain such popularity despite massive upsets like the FATF greylisting apart from the reverberations of sleaze and corruption from the Muscat era?

Many would be tempted to blame the ineptitude of the PN and its leaders. But this is only part of the answer. The major reason has to do with Abela himself. Although unimpressive in many ways and lacking his predecessor’s tongue-in-cheek wit, Abela has found a way to balance his appeal with both Labour’s core vote, while retaining his appeal among PN leaning voters. It is the PN that has not managed to stop the haemorrhage of votes to Labour, which would be much greater if trust in Abela is translated into a vote for Labour.

PN’s dilemma: hit hard or succumb?

So the PN is in a quandary: should it punch Abela hard in the hope of diminishing his appeal or should it opt for a more conciliatory, but principled approach for the good will of M.O.R. voters? And where is the public uproar on environmental issues and good governance reflected in the polls? The answer may well be that people may not be expecting electoral solutions to such endemic problems and have greater hope in change from civic activism.

But it may also well be that such issues prominent in the media are also restricted to a vocal echo chamber. This on its own also reflects the absence of charismatic political leadership that can communicate, beyond a limited constituency, a counter-hegemony to Labour’s economic model.

The ultimate secret behind Abela’s success may well be the way he was elected at a strategic juncture. While promising “continuity”, Abela has managed to create a safe distance between himself and the Muscat era

Possibly Abela’s popularity is also tied to Grech’s own balancing act between moderates and hawks in his own party, which further dilutes the PN’s message. And even while the PN continues to chase with the hounds while running with the hares, third parties with a more focused message have so far failed to tap in to popular discontentment.

The ultimate secret behind Abela’s success may well be the way he was elected at a strategic juncture. While promising “continuity”, Abela has managed to create a safe distance between himself and the Muscat era. Rather than being blamed for Malta’s greylisting, Abela is seen as the PM who is mending Malta’s reputation and on whose watch police action was finally taken against the likes of Keith Schembri and Nexia BT. In many ways the resignation of Muscat has offered Labour an opportunity to renew itself before the inevitable ten-year itch.

In short, Labour was able to convey the impression of a change in government albeit one in which Labour remained dominant. And while there is ample evidence that Labour’s broad church is showing its first cracks, Abela has shown few signs of slipping, except for a small period during which the government seemed to have lost control of the pandemic.

This also explains why the government now prefers to sin on the side of caution. In this sense, for the PN the next election is taking a greater semblance of a chronicle of a defeat foretold.