Editorial: The duopoly’s firmament stays intact

Malta’s green-left third parties have returned a mildly satisfactory result (8,900 votes) that leaves them none the wiser about how to breach the firmament of Malta’s duopolistic party culture.

At 1.3%, the Green Party ADPD once again reports a declining trend from its high of 1.8% back in 2013. With party leader Sandra Gauci probably calling it a day in her short political career, this result is a wounding blow, even considering that the alleged merger with the hollowed-out Partit Demokratiku provided absolutely no value to the Greens.

With Arnold Cassola’s Momentum taking 1.5%, the new centrist party catapults itself as Malta’s third party – whatever dubious accolade that might be in terms of Maltese voting culture.

It is true that the third-party vote also carries a ‘safe to vote conscience’ logic. When the electoral result feels foregone, the cost of a third-party vote is lower, as evident for ADPD in 2013 and 2022; in 2017, which had a similarly large Labour majority, the AD vote collapsed to 0.83%, probably due to the far-right factor at the time from Patrijotti Maltin, which took 1,117 votes – a further breakdown of the confused protest vote.

On the other end of the spectrum, the far-right formations keep hitting a ceiling because they have historically always dissolved and mutated.

As with Azzjoni Nazzjonali in 2008, MPM and Alleanza Bidla in 2017, ABBA in 2022 and now Imperium Europa, together they never exceed 0.6% in any single election. This year, Aħwa Maltin at 0.6% is the largest far-right result in general election history.

In terms of ‘population increase’, there has been no significant growth in electorate size. Total valid votes cast peaked in 2017 at 310,000; in 2022 there was a fall of over 15,000 in a sign of abstention and spoiled ballots; and, in 2026, valid votes recovered to 306,000, at par with the 305,000 cast in 2013. Labour performed handsomely well, breaching the 54% bar of votes cast each time.

This time around, however, Labour garnered its lowest vote tally since 2013 – 158,000; while the PN achieved its highest vote tally at 137,000, making this its best electoral performance since losing power. The 7.1 percentage-point victory margin is still the fourth largest of all elections since 1981.

What, then, can change third party fortunes in a contest that remains implacably dominated by the PL-PN duopoly?

To make a breakthrough, Malta's green and reformist forces must unite under one banner, sharpen their image and message, and build stronger ties with residents' groups and local communities

An effective change in electoral rules that allows a minimum national electoral threshold will most likely guarantee room for a third party in parliament. However, there is nothing at present to suggest that Maltese lawmakers would be remotely interested in such constitutional reforms.

But, as previously argued in a previous editorial, the third party needs to find the X-factor in a charismatic leader who can share a radical vision of what Malta can be.

When so much of their ideological vanguard has been scuppered by the duopoly’s own embrace of environmental laws and progressive reforms, third parties should redact their moralising and pearl-clutching repartee.

To make a breakthrough, Malta's green and reformist forces must unite under one banner, sharpen their image and message, and build stronger ties with residents' groups and local communities.

A third party without grassroots community support will only lap up the same handful of protest votes; and a third party without a costed economic vision cannot aspire to govern.

The people who can show they can operate, visibly and successfully, at these two parts of the axis, will be trusted to be elected to parliament.