The unprecedented drop in Labour’s support in Saturday’s MEP elections is driven by arrogance, negligence and poor decisions, according to party insiders who spoke to Times of Malta and grassroots voters expressing themselves on social media.

Labour experienced a nine-point drop in support, seeing their votes drop from 54% in 2019’s MEP elections, to just 45% this time around.

While the sheer scale of the exodus came as a surprise, the disgruntlement within Labour ranks certainly wasn’t.

Labour figures, including Prime Minister Robert Abela, have described the election result as one that sends “a message” but have been rather cryptic in elaborating on what this message may be.

As is often the case in electoral post-mortems, insiders point to all manner of occasionally contradictory issues as the cause of the upset, from broad national concerns to the bread-and-butter issues they face each day.

The Joseph Muscat factor

There’s no getting away from the elephant in the room – the arraignment of former prime minister Joseph Muscat days before people headed to the polls.

Party insiders are split on what impact this had on the different factions within the party.

“I think the government was seen not to support Joseph Muscat enough,” one cabinet minister said. 

“The problem is that our traditional base did not vote for us. When the problems are in the second and third districts (Labour strongholds) that’s what it means.”

Others are convinced the opposite is true.

A different cabinet minister believes that the government spent much of its time defending Muscat instead of governing, to the detriment of its appeal among the broader electorate.

“Many people at home are unhappy that the government is defending someone facing criminal charges,” they said.  

“He has every right to defend himself, and I hope that he receives a fair hearing in court, but that shouldn’t spill into the public arena.”

Saturday’s result is “an opportunity to break with the past” and move on, they said. “Those worrying about detaching ourselves from Joseph Muscat can see how that strategy did not help us.”

This split also emerged in the public comments by several public figures associated with the party.

Former party secretary general Jason Micallef, writing on Facebook, argued that the party adopted a “confusing strategy” on the matter, with most Labourites feeling that Muscat and other former ministers were abandoned, much to the chagrin of the party faithful.

Academic and former Orizzont journalist Martin Debattista took the opposite stance, describing the outcome of the election as “a victory for moderate Labourites who are angry at how Joseph Muscat took them for a ride” and were dismayed to see the party react to news of his arraignment by attacking the judiciary.

Calls for a public show of support towards Muscat and, especially, the fact that this sort of protest was not called by the party “did not help”, former Labour prime minister Alfred Sant told Times of Malta.

“During campaigns, the Labour Party should be the only body to call for public protests by Labour. This served to undermine the party’s image, authority and backing among its ‘soft’, even not so soft supporters, as well as others,” he said.

Protect core voters or appease moderates?

Two cabinet ministers who spoke to Times of Malta have diametrically opposed takes on the issue.

“You can’t win a supermajority just by attracting your core; if you do everything for the base you push floaters away,” one minister said, arguing that middle-of-the-road voters were alienated by Labour’s attempts to appease their base.

But, another argued, “the government needs to keep its feet closer to the ground” and look out for their core voters first and foremost.

Election data seen by Times of Malta suggests that Labour lost swathes of voters from both groups, with sharp drops in support both in traditional Labour districts as well as more mixed areas of the country.

Support for Labour dropped by some 9% in the second and third districts, both of them party strongholds, but fell just as much, if not more, in several other districts across the centre of Malta and in the north.

‘Incompetence’ and ‘arrogance’ in government

But disquiet within the Labour ranks stretches far beyond its position on Muscat.

Backbench MPs say they are kept on the fringes of the party, with Abela giving them scant opportunity to contribute to the party’s decision-making structures.

“Right now, he is not involving us at all,” one backbench MP said.  

But, another backbench argued, Abela is hardly spoilt for choice when it comes to his backbench. “People in the backbench either do not have the skills to run a ministry or are tainted by the past,” they said.

Others point fingers at the cabinet, with one MP speaking to Times of Malta particularly blunt in their assessment of it.

“There is too much incompetence up there,” they said. “One consequence of their inexperience is that they are becoming arrogant. People see that and it puts them off.”

These complaints are certainly echoed among the many Labour supporters airing their grievances in the party’s Facebook groups.

Labour voters feel abandoned

Many Labour voters say that they feel abandoned and sidelined by their own party, treated as “just a number” when they turn to government to air their grievances.

Much of their anger is directed towards government customer care departments, which many describe as the epitome of the “arrogance” within the government’s ranks.

Although mention of these departments is widely seen as a byword for a request for a handout, many core Labour voters say that even their legitimate grievances have been repeatedly ignored, despite having raised them with countless authorities, ministers and customer care departments over the months.

One Labour voter wrote: “you try to report corruption in a government entity to the minister responsible and, instead of taking action, they shut the door in your face. Customer care? They take you for a ride, they don’t even reply to your emails.”

Countless others had similar stories, with their complaints reading like shortlist of issues that frustrate residents across the land.

One says he can’t get any sleep because the Labour band club on his street blares music into the night, another complains of dumped construction waste in their neighbourhood, a third says that roadworks in their street have come to a complete halt. In each case, they say, authorities have turned a blind eye to their complaints.

Overpopulation, construction and cost of living

Labourites’ grievances go beyond the purely local, spilling over into broader national issues.

Unsurprisingly, one source of much unhappiness is unfettered construction, with the government seen to be at the whims of contractors at the cost of all else.

Many Labourites bring up the case of (former PL mayor) Conrad Borg Manché. “We threw away one of our own and 5,000 votes, let’s thank the genius who decided to build a petrol station in Gżira for all the votes he brought us,” one voter said sarcastically.

Unsurprisingly, Malta’s growing foreign population also comes under fire (“stop bringing in cheap labour and I’ll vote again,” one Labourite says), as does the rising cost of living, with some saying that they are struggling to make ends meet.