Is the pendulum swinging back to the PN?

To put the latest survey in perspective, let’s turn the clock back to 2007 - three years after Malta joined the European Union.

Polls at the time indicated a small lead for Labour, thanks to a minor shift from the PN to the PL. Yet, Alfred Sant, who bore the weight of the ‘partnership’ baggage and two consecutive electoral defeats, was less trusted than Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi by a margin of between five and seven points.

The PN responded by winding up their campaign machinery and in 2008 launched ‘GonziPN’ - a presidential-style effort that banked on Gonzi’s trust advantage.

This strategy helped them win the general election by the thinnest of margins. It ensured that the pendulum swung back the PN’s way just in time for one last tick before the arrival of Joseph Muscat and the supermajorities he would strategically build.

Roll forward 16 years and MaltaToday’s poll now suggests the PN is ahead by 12,000 votes - a lead that falls within the survey’s margin of error and leaves the political clock hands pointing to an uncertain future.

In many ways, this recalls the pre-2008 era, when the narrow difference between the parties often made elections hard to predict, with trust in leaders becoming a crucial indicator of eventual winners. Trust, therefore, has long been one of the PN’s favourite timepieces. Even back in 1992, the party’s slogan was “Eddie Fiducja”. It won them the election by a 13,000-vote margin, considered a very big majority at the time.

If we wind forward to now, Robert Abela’s 16-point trust lead over Opposition leader Bernard Grech suggests that Labour still holds the upper hand. But a ticking clock is rarely simple - trust in leaders may not be the only mechanism driving voter decisions. Nearly a third of PN supporters express no trust in either leader yet will still vote for the Opposition.

Moreover, the high percentage of voters who trust neither Abela nor Grech (31%) implies that many may base their vote on other factors. Since respondents are limited to choosing between these two, trusting the incumbent Prime Minister over a less inspiring Opposition leader doesn’t necessarily make them predisposed to vote Labour.  It’s as if the bar is so low that trust itself has been devalued, reducing it to just another tick on a checklist rather than a decisive factor.

To fine-tune the question in the latest survey, respondents were asked which leader they trust more “in running the country”. The survey showed that 43% trust Abela more than Grech in governing Malta, adding another cog to Labour’s trust advantage.

Further complicating matters, among current non-voters, only 4% trust Grech, while 34% trust Abela. This trust deficit suggests that Grech’s unpopularity could be the brake stopping the pendulum from making a full swing back. It also implies that a significant portion of these non-voters would still prefer a Labour government.

In a nutshell, the MaltaToday survey indicates that Labour’s losses are primarily to abstention, with the PN making only limited gains among Labour voters and 2022 non-voters.

These gains would have made a difference in any election held before the advent of super majorities in 2008.  But on their own, these shifts would not be enough to reverse Labour’s super majority in 2022.

Ultimately, the survey shows Labour ‘losing’ 45,035 votes over 2022, while the PN has only gained 6,138, with abstention increasing by a staggering 26,236. The key to the PN’s current ‘success’ lies in Labour’s higher abstention rate: 22% of PL voters in 2022 say they intend not to vote, compared to only 12.5% of PN voters.

This dynamic makes the PN’s current advantage delicate and possibly ephemeral. Labour could wind up support again by recovering votes from those it has lost, but identifying these voters may be difficult.

Addressing the concerns of traditional Labour supporters could risk driving away the ‘floating’ voters who switched to Labour in 2013.

As it stands, Labour may feel tempted to capitalise on its trust advantage and frame the next election - due in three years - as a presidential-style contest between Abela and Grech.

But the PN could still throw a curveball, perhaps changing its leader before the next general election. Roberta Metsola, for example, could step in as leader once her term as EU Parliament President ends in January 2027.

Nonetheless, Labour may pre-empt such a move by calling an election before that date, resetting the political clock once again.