Labour expects victory with strong turnouts and government largesse

The Labour Party is expected to clinch a convincing victory in the 2015 local council elections, as 34 councils – most of them Labour-led – could give Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yet another feather in his cap.

His would be the first government to register a local councils’ election victory, after having won successive local elections for Labour since he became leader in 2009.

While turnouts in some Labour core towns has suffered, overall the party has managed to mobilise most of their voters in an effort to influence the result of last week’s referendum.

Malta and Gozo voted to retain spring hunting by supporting the government’s derogation from an EU ban, by a margin of just 2,220 votes: the Spring Hunting Out campaign has claimed Labour voters were mobilized to support Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s intention to vote in favour of the derogation.

Labour’s mobilization effort provided strong turnouts in traditional hunting communities, such as Qormi, Haz-Zebbug, Luqa, and Siggiewi in Malta, and Nadur and Qala in Gozo.

Labour is expected to perform well in these councils, with worst-case scenarios for the PN being the loss of traditional majorities in Siggiewi. With an increase in turnout in Siggiewi of nine points over the last round of elections in 2012, Labour activists were even reported to have told the council’s executive secretary to prepare for a “the changeover”.

PN sources feared they will lose Nadur, the hometown of PN secretary-general Chris Said and former Gozo minister Giovanna Debono.

And in St Paul’s Bay, former PN mayor Paul Bugeja now is contesting on a Labour ticket, a factor that would have shift a good number of votes over to Labour.

Apart from the increased turnout, Labour’s local council campaign was packed with government initiatives that once again gave Muscat’s administration the all-important patina of energy. It dispensed €35 cheques as Cost of Living Allowance bonuses, lowered energy bills for businesses as pledged, and announced a major expression of interest for a private-public partnership in three hospitals.