PN received €3.36 million in donations in 2017

The Nationalist Party received over €3.36 million in donations in 2017, significantly more than the Labour Party, which received just over €1.98 million, in a year which saw Labour win a sweeping majority over its Opposition in the June general election.

According to financial figures duly submitted to the Electoral Commission, Malta’s five political parties – the Labour, Nationalist and Democratic Parties, as well as Alternattiva Demokratika and the Moviment Patrijotti Maltin – together received a total of over €5.36 million in donations.

The parties were each required to submit a report detailing the donations they received in 2017 to the Electoral Commission
by 20 April this year.

Two large single donations for the PL, one for the PN

According to the law governing the financing of political parties, all donations by a singular individual or entity of over €7,000 must have the identity of the donator specified in the report sent to the Electoral Commission.

The Labour Party received two donations, totaling €25,000, from single sources in 2017 – one amounting to €15,000, which came from a private individual, and one of €10,000 from Tarcisio Galea Properties, a corporate entity.

The Nationalist Party received only one such donation over €7,000 from a single donor, in the form of €10,320 from a private individual.

The bulk of Labour’s donations last year came in the form of contributions of €500 or less, with the party receiving a total of €1.24 million such donations from 48,285 donors. It also received slightly under €335,700 in donations amounting to €50 or less, but did not specify the total number of donors. €380,600 in donations of more than €500 but less than €7,000 were given to the party by 208 donors.

The greatest portion of the PN’s donations came in the form of contributions over €500 but less than €7,000, with 525 donors handing over €1.3 million to the party’s cause. Almost €1.29 million reached the party in the form of donations not over €50, from 19,738 donors, while over €763,200 were donated by 2,781 donors in contributions of €500 or less.

Labour received slightly under 55% of the total number of vote in the June general election last year, while Forza Nazzjonali, a PN-PD electoral alliance, received just over 43%.

The Democratic Party reported no donations exceeding €7,000 in 2017. It, however, received a single donation of €2,400 from one source, classified as a contribution of more than €500 but under €7,000. Almost €1,400 were given by ten donors in amounts not exceeding €500 each, and €1,500 were given in contributions not over €50, by 111 donors.

A total of 122 donors contributed to the PD.

AD followers donate over €10,000

Alternattiva Demokratika received no singular donations over €7,000, but managed to collect over €6,000 from four donors in amounts of over €500 but not exceeding €7,000 each. It was also given close to €2,000 by 14 donors through contributions of not over €500, and more than €2,600 in donations under €50, for which it did not specify the total number of donors.

The Moviment Patrijotti Maltin, a far-right anti-immigration party, declared in its report that it received donations amounting to €1,090 from 51 donors, each in the form of contributions of less than €50.

AD and MPM together received just over 1% of total votes in the 2017 election.